Homestuck: Part One
by JadeFoxx
Summary: The original Homestuck story told in novel form, for those who don't like the art or for those who, like me, just enjoy the story in all mediums. (I claim no ownership on the story, I simply re-wrote and added to it in a way in which an ordinary book may be written.) Acts 1-4, will update when convenient.
1. Introduction

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

What will the name of this young man be?


	2. Act One: Chapter 1

**ACT ONE – The Note Desolation Plays**

Zoosmell Pooplord. No, no, stop being such a smartass!

John Egbert. This was the name of the young man currently standing in his bedroom, and today was his birthday; his thirteenth to be exact. He didn't feel like wearing anything special to mark the occasion, just his favorite graphic tee featuring a green slime ghost and some shorts.

However, there were a number of cakes scattered about his room.

But this would not be a very good indicator of his various interests, oh no. One could instead gather from his numerous film posters that John Egbert was a fan of really terrible movies. One may also notice his shelf of CDs and books sitting next to his computer that would indicate he enjoyed playing games sometimes and programming computers from time to time, but wasn't very good at it. And upon further investigation, one could even discover his fondness for paranormal lore and his desire to become an amateur magician.

* * *

After standing around for a good while, John decided that he would fetch his arms. He walked over to his dresser to retrieve them from a drawer before realizing this was not where he had left them at all! '_Your arms are in your magic chest, pooplord!' _He thought to himself.

To his annoyance, John removed the cake that was sitting on top of the chest and placed it on his bed. He then rummaged through the chest and finally pulled out his fake arms and grinned. These would certainly come in handy for some hilarious antics later! He captchalogued the arms in his sylladex; although he wasn't quite sure what that meant yet.

Inside the chest, were the rest of his humorous and mystical artifacts – each a devastating weapon in the hands of a skilled magician or a cunning prankster. John looked over each of his items – a pair of trick handcuffs, a stunt sword, a magician's hat, a pair of beagle puss glasses, several smoke pellets, several blood capsules, a copy of _Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery_ and one copy of _Harry Anderson's "Wise Guy,"_ by Mike Caveney.

He felt that some of this stuff may be useful later, but for the time being decided to take only the smoke pellets. He shut the chest and stowed the pellets onto one captchalogue card in his sylladex. John still wasn't totally sure what that meant, but he was starting to get the hang of the vernacular at least.

He now had two empty captchalogue cards remaining.

John decided he now wanted to equip his fake arms. He wasn't totally sure if "equip" was a verb copasetic with the abstract behavioral medium in which he dwelled, but he gave it a try anyway.

Unfortunately, he could not access the fake arms. Their card was underneath the one he just used to captchalogue the smoke pellets. He would have to use the pellets first in order to access the arms. _'Ah, that's no good!'_ he thought. _'I'd just make my room lousy with smoke!'_

His sylladex's fetch modus was currently dictated by the logic of a stack data structure. He was never all that great with data structures and he found the concept puzzling and mildly irritating. But he had hope that perhaps he would advance new, more practical fetch modi for his sylladex with a little more experience.

John walked back over towards his door and examined his Problem Sleuth poster. _'Is it even possible to get any more hard boiled than that?'_ he pondered as he looked at the image of his favorite web comic hero. _'I really doubt it.'_

There was a nice spot on the wall next to it, where he had been meaning to hang another poster soon.

Looking down, he noticed a note sitting on top of his drawers that he had failed to see earlier. He picked it up, noting the aroma of fatherly aftershaves and colognes that came with it. The note read,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON.

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU.

Beside the note was a rolled up poster which John quickly took and placed in his sylladex. He wondered what could be printed on it.

He would need a way to hang it on his wall, so he went and picked up a hammer and some nails off the floor. He first placed the hammer in his sylladex, but now all four of his captchalogue cards were full. So what would happen if he tried to take the nails?

He figured it didn't hurt to try and captchalogued the four nails into the top card, pushing all the artifacts down a card. John flinched as the fake arms were pushed entirely out of the deck and deposited on the floor in front of him_. 'Oh well. They're probably completely useless anyway.'_ He thought. _'But I probably don't want to do that again, unless I want to drop the smoke pellets and suffer the consequences.'_

Next, he merged the top two cards. The hammer and nails were now captchalogued on the same card and could be used together. He took the hammer and nails card in conjunction with the poster card beneath it and nailed the poster to the blank space on the wall.

It was glorious. A Little Monsters movie poster; exactly what he had wanted. The old man really came through this time.

John looked over at the Con Air poster hanging above his bed. _"Put the bunny back in the box." _Truly a classic scene. He then turned his gaze to his Deep Impact poster which hung nearby. Morgan Freeman's genteel, homespun mannerisms were perfect qualities for a president presiding over a crisis. _"Oceans rise. Cities fall. Hope survives." _Wow. Films about impending apocalypses fascinated John. Plus, a black president? Now he'd seen everything!


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Unfortunately, this site prevents me from changing text font/color so all chat logs will have to just be in plain black :[ So sad, anyway, on with the story!

* * *

The calendar on John's wall was marked on his birthday, April thirteenth. But, there was another day marked with a large red 'X.' The ninth of April was supposed to be the arrival date for the highly touted SBURB Beta launch.

It had been three days already. It was beginning to become a sore subject with him.

* * *

The cakes which were still scattered about the bedroom were beginning to look almost appetizing to John, but there was no way he was eating any more. He was sick to death of cake! He had been eating it all day and had no intention of clogging his sylladex with it either. The cakes would remain where they were for now.

As he pushed down the thought of partaking in more birthday cake, John heard a notice from his computer. Someone was messaging him.

He sat down at his desk and pulled up his screen. This is where he spent most of his time. He had even decorated his desktop with some rather handsome Ghost Busters wallpaper which he made himself. He was really proud of it.

His desktop was also littered with various programming project files. He was so bad at programming, sometimes he wondered why he even bothered with it.

The Pesterchum application was flashing. Someone was trying to get in touch with him.

John opened the chat application to see that only one of his chums was logged in. He'd sent him a message.

- turntechGodhead** [TG]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 16:13 -

**TG**: hey so what sort of insane loot did you rake in today  
**EB**: i got a little monsters poster, it's so awesome. i'm going to watch it again today, the applejuice scene was so funny.  
**TG**: oh hell that is such a coincidence i just found an unopened container of apple juice in my closet it is like fucking christmas up in here  
**EB**: ok thats fine, but i just have one question and then a word of caution. have you ever seen a movie called little monsters starring howie mandel and fred savage?  
**TG**: but  
**TG**: the seal on the bottle is unbroken  
**TG**: are you suggesting someone put piss in my apple juice at the factory  
**EB**: all im saying is don't you think monster howie mandel has the power to do something as simple as reseal a bottle?  
**EB**: try using your brain numbnuts.  
**TG**: why did the fat kid or whoever drank it know what piss tasted like  
**TG**: i mean his reaction was nigh instantaneous  
**EB**: it was the 15th day in a row howie mandel peed in his juice.  
**TG**: ok i can accept that  
**TG**: monster B-list celebrity douchebags are cunning and persistent pranksters  
**TG**: also fred savage has a really punchable face  
**TG**: but who cares about this lets stop talking about it  
**TG**: did you get the beta yet  
**EB**: no.  
**EB**: did you?  
**TG**: man i got two copies already  
**TG**: but i dont care im not going to play it or anything the game sounds boring  
**TG**: did you see how it got slammed in game bro?  
**EB**: game bro is a joke and we both know it.  
**TG**: yeah  
**TG**: why dont you go check your mail maybe its there now  
**EB**: alright.

John stood up and went to his window. From his room he could see a view of the front yard. Hanging from the tree was his tire swing. In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing was like a proper gentleman without a monocle. That is to say, he could hardly be considered a terribly proper gentleman at all.

And there, beside his driveway, was the mailbox. The little arm-swingy-dealy thing or whatever it's called was flipped up! (What the hell is that thing called anyway.) The red flippy-lever thing meant he had new mail, and that meant the beta might be there!

As he was about to hurry downstairs, he heard a car pull into the driveway. It looked like his Dad had returned from the grocery store. _'Oh great.' _John groaned inwardly. _'He is beating me to the mail.' _Forget it, he would check the mail later.

If he went downstairs to get it, Dad would likely monopolize hours of his time. So John decided to chill out up here for a while until the dust settled.

Sometimes he felt like he was trapped in his room; stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly bordered on the titular.

* * *

John's chum was pestering him again. The clockwork of friendship turned ceaselessly, operating the swing-lever dealies of harassment in perpetuity!

Whatever. The dude could just hold his damn horses.

He walked over to the CD rack and browsed through his selection of games. He'd put countless manhours into this assortment of quality titles. But nothing was striking him at the moment.

Returning once more to his magic chest, John pulled out _Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text. _He decided to consult with the Colonel's bottomless wisdom.

Good grief this thing was huge. It could kill a cat if he dropped it.

But to really dig into this hefty book, he would have to captchalogue it. He was not sure he was ready to logjam his other artifacts beneath it just yet.

Musing over the idea of taking the massive tome, in a momentary lapse of concentration, John accidentally captchalogued the fake arms again.

Frustrated with his mistake, John sat at his computer and pulled up Pesterchum. He felt that the client should reflect his mood change in some way. He didn't think the situation was quite dire enough to go all the way to "RANCOROUS", so "BULLY" would have to do he guessed, clicking on the button to change his mood display.

At the bottom of the screen the flashing icon indicated that someone was still pestering him. He had forgotten. John figured he may as well answer him.

**TG**: is it there  
**TG**: plz say yes  
**TG**: maybe you can play with TT shes been pestering me all day about it  
**TG**: shes mackin on me so hard all the time i start to feel embarrassed for her  
**TG**: i mean not that i can blame her or anything  
**EB**: yes, it is understandable because you are really attractive. i am attracted to you.  
**TG**: thank you  
**EB**: jk haha.  
**EB**: no, i don't have it yet.  
**EB**: my dad has the mail and i guess i have to go get it from him and see if it's there.  
**EB**: and i've been busy spending all afternoon shitting around with my stupid sylladex.  
**EB**: it's so frustrating.  
**TG**: whats your modus  
**EB**: what?  
**TG**: how do you retrieve artifacts from it  
**EB**: oh. like one at a time i guess. and if i put too much in, something falls out.  
**TG**: stack? hahahahahaha  
**EB**: what is yours?  
**TG**: hash map  
**TG**: my bro taught me a few tricks he basically knows everything and is awesome  
**EB**: what the hell is that?  
**TG**: you should probably brush up on your data structures  
**EB**: i guess.  
**TG**: did you at least allocate your strife specibus  
**EB**: no.  
**TG**: it could free up a card for you  
**TG**: plus let you attack stuff whenever things get too hot to handle  
**TG**: which is never  
**TG**: what have you got  
**EB**: well, i've got a hammer but it's trapped under some arms.  
**TG**: wow you really suck at this dont you  
**TG**: just get rid of the arms and then allocate the hammer to the specibus  
**EB**: how?  
**TG**: i dont know just use the arms on any old thing and see if it works

John got up and figured he would give his friend's advice a shot. He stuck the fake arms in the cake that was sitting on his bed. This definitely made the cake at least 300% more hilarious. He was sure Colonel Sassacre would know the precise index of elevated hilarity.

He then checked the back of his strife specibus for the kind abstratus he had in mind for it.

After allocating his strife specibus with the HAMMERKIND abstratus, he moved the hammer from his captchalogue deck to his strife deck.

**EB**: ok, i did it.  
**TG**: hammerkind?  
**EB**: yeah.  
**TG**: ok that will be the permanent allocation for your specibus  
**TG**: i guess i should have mentioned that  
**EB**: uh...  
**TG**: hope you like hammers dude!  
**EB**: yeah, that's fine i guess. i can't imagine it's going to be all that relevant.

Now that John had some space in his sylladex to work with, he figured he might as well start squandering it immediately.

Ordinarily, Sassacre's ridiculous book would be way too heavy to carry around in any practical way. He guessed maybe this was one respect in which the cards presented some convenience.

* * *

Lying on his desk was John's copy of _GameBro_ magazine. The cover featured the SBURB logo with the caption, "Why the 'Game of the Year' or whatever isn't as good as some other stuff I like that's better."

He flipped open to the feature article on the much anticipated game.

_So ok._

_ SBURB is this game that a lot of cats seem hella pumped of. And this beta is sitting on my desk for review, so I'm like, yeah man I'll write something._

_ But I don't know. I'm like so this is about houses or some noise? That's fine, I'm sure that's like fucking dynamite in a handbag for some brosephs. But all I'm saying is, when do you get to _**thrash** _anything? While you're playing house or some shit, are you ever in jeopardy of getting mud on your doll's dress or whatever from busting out, and I quote, "the mad stunts all wicked up-ins?"_

_ Know what I'm saying, Bro-Yo Ma? I didn't actually play this game, but I gave it 1.5 hats out of 5 hats to keep it real._

_ At this point I'd like to give a shout out to my boy Denis who was over the other day. We were going to chill in front of The Dark Knight and he was so psyched of it y'all._

_ So this one time he was leaning against the screen door and the shit popped open, and the back deck was wet and he slipped down the steps and broke his thumb on the lawn. It wasn't a long fall, but hey I guess a thumb bone wasn't made for supporting the brunt of a huge useless tool against wet grass. We never did watch Dark Knight on account of Ron trucking his bawling candy-ass girth to the hospital. _

_ But it's cool, I still got another watch in me Brotel Rwanda._

Rolling his eyes, John shut the magazine and captchalogued it. It might come in handy if he ever needed something that burned easily.


	4. Chapter 3

John's final captchalogue card was expended on his magician's hat. He wanted to get his funny glasses as well, but he didn't have a free card in his sylladex. However, he was able to merge the beagle puss with the magician's hat on one card to create a clever disguise that would be sure to fool his dad.

John? Who is this John you speak of? It was quite certain there has never been, nor ever will be…

Yeah, this was a really shitty disguise.

While he was wearing the items, they remained on the card, but it was temporarily removed from the deck, thus freeing up the cards beneath it.

John exited his bedroom and entered the hallway. On one wall hung a picture of a fella who sure knew how to have a laugh, a man after his own heart. John always thought he looked a lot like Michael Cera, but his dad swore on the many hallowed tombs of Egypt that it was not. John wasn't sure about that though.

On the other wall was one of Dad's stupid clowns. Or _harlequins_, as he was quick to correct anyone who would venture such brazen assumptions.

John continued on his way downstairs and into the living room where the accursed odor of fresh baking wafted into his newfound nostrils.

Something was brewing in the kitchen. It must have been the connivings of his arch nemesis, Betty Crocker, and the rich, buttery aroma of her plot stunk to high heaven.

This mission was going to be more difficult than he had imagined.

Next to the fireplace in the living room was a shelf of fanciful harlequins. Fucking garbage; John hated this stuff. Funny was funny, but Dad sure could be a real cornball.

Sometimes at night John prayed for burglars.

A bright flame flickered in the fireplace. It didn't matter that it was April and not terribly chilly outside. In a home, a fireplace needed a fire, because that's what a fireplace was for. A fire belonged in a fireplace, dammit, cata(ptcha)gorically, at all times, without exception.

As domestic myth of unaccountable origin held, a home borrows the spirit of the flame for as long as it makes a guest of it, much as the moon takes liberty with the sun's rays.

"The moon's an errant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun." -Mark Twain

It was almost certain Mark Twain said that.

While he was standing in front of the fire, John took his copy of _GameBro_ magazine and threw it into the fire. It didn't burn as quickly as he had hoped.

Each _GameBro_ magazine was guaranteed to be printed on 40% recycled asbestos, for big ups to Mother Earth, yo.

Sitting atop of the fireplace mantle was the sacred urn containing John's departed Nanna's ashes.

Whenever his father gave her portrait a wistful glance now and then, John could tell it brought back painful memories. A tall bookshelf, a ladder, an unabridged _Colonel Sassacre's_.

He never wanted to talk about it.

As he was thinking about all of this, John clumsily mishandled the sacred urn, spilling ash everywhere.

In retrospect, upon mulling cinematic tropes regarding ash-filled urns, this outcome was a virtual certainty.

He knew he had better clean this up before Dad found it.

But instead thought he would first improve his clever disguise by adding one of his father's pipes to it.

Perfect.

Distracted from the ashes once again, John saw an oversized present in the middle of the room he had failed to notice earlier. On the outside of the wrapped box was a tag which read

CHAMP.

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING IF YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO IT.

I BELIEVE IN YOU.

Contemplating what could be inside this package was sort of exciting, but it made him a little nervous at the same time.

John tore off the wrappings, tossing them aside, and opened the box to reveal…

Oh hell no.

It was a giant harlequin doll, armless and smiling.

He propped it up on the couch; having it in the middle of the floor sprawled out all akimbo like that struck him as unseemly.

He then captchalogued the ashes to his one available card and merged them with the sacred urn.

Most of the ash was back in the urn, but it was a total mess. It probably would have been tidier if he had just used a broom and dustpan.

He stealthily put the urn back in its place on the mantle. No one would be the wiser; except maybe for people with eyes.

Suddenly, John thought of another brilliant idea of something to do with those pointless fake arms. He bolted back up the stairs to his room and pried the arms out of the cake on his bed, captchaloguing them.

Meanwhile, it seemed that Pesterchum was acting up again. He sat down at his computer and saw that another one of his chums was messaging him.

- tentacleTherapist **[TT]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 16:13 -

**TT**: I understand you have recently come into possession of the beta release of "The Game of the Year", as featured in respectable periodicals such as GameBro Magazine.  
**EB**: that's an ugly rumor.  
**EB**: whoever told you that is a filthy liar.  
**EB**: and you should probably stop hitting on him all the time or whatever.  
**TT**: I can't control myself.  
**TT**: I must have a weakness for insufferable pricks.  
**EB**: anyway i still haven't checked the mail, my dad has it.  
**EB**: i'm trying to go get it from him, so brb  
**TT**: John.  
**EB**: what?  
**TT**: You're wearing one of your disguises now, aren't you?  
**TT**: You are typing to me right now while wearing something ridiculous.  
**EB**: no, why would you even think that?  
**EB**: that's so stupid.  
**TT**: Ok.  
**TT**: Why don't you go get the game from your father?  
**EB**: alright, wish me luck.  
**EB**: oh, btw...  
**EB**: jk I was wearing a funny disguise this whole time.  
**EB**: gotcha! hehehehe  
**TT**: I know, John.

After getting off of his computer, John returned downstairs. He could now execute that brilliant idea he had.

There should be just enough frosting on the fake arms to serve as an adequate adhesive.

He attached the arms to the harlequin doll on the couch and snickered. He didn't care what Colonel Sassacre said, that made it _at least_ a million percent funnier.

Meanwhile, a stray page from the burning _GameBro_ had floated out onto the floor by the discarded present wrap. John picked them both up and threw them into the fire.

He then pulled out Sassacre's text to consult in order to determine exactly how hilarious the doll was now. He opened up to one of the first pages.

_THE CREEPY-CRAWLIES!_

_ Hell's bells, we are having a mighty sporting time of it!_

_ Hold fast, my intrepid fellow prank-smiths! We've merely nicked the mahogany of our japing chests. _

_ If I may direct the incisive ogle of your beagle puss to the wriggling regency of rubber bugs, plastic parasites, squirming serpents, pliable pests, and every such order and phyla of creepy-crawlies!_

_ Land sakes alive, we are cooking with petrol now!_

_ In further exhibits we shall dwell on artifice useful to your exploits. Is your pappy's rod and reel handy? What about a bit of iron cord; it shouldn't prove elusive. Bring those writing rascals to life, and set the nerves of some old maid to the wreck of Hesperus! _

_ Do you have a bothersome aunt who never seems troubled to find ways with your sunny afternoons? A broad, splintery fence – a bucket of whitewash, perhaps?_

_ By gum you'll fix her wagon!_

_ And what of that tawny gent who puts his lackadaisical lean near the sarsaparilla font? You'll have that listless octoroon find the spring in his step just yet!_

But this text was way too big to navigate in a timely fashion. He decided to forget it. What John needed to do was find his dad and retrieve the mail.

The door to his left lead to the kitchen, from which the smell of baking wafted – a powerful aroma which could have lifted an especially portly hobo off his feet. The door to his right lead to the study, where Dad spent a lot of his time. He could be in either room.

John entered the study, but it didn't look like Dad was in there right now.

He approached the desk where he saw his dad's stuff lying out – a deck of playing cards, a pipe, the April issue of _The Serious Jester_ magazine and a stray captchalogue card.

There was also a can of peanuts on the desk. Oh _Dad. _John wouldn't be falling for _that_ one again anytime soon. A severe peanut allergy was a terrible affliction to cope with.

Next to the desk was a hat rack. John swapped his magician's hat with a bowler hat that was hanging there to upgrade his costume.

This disguise was somewhat less funny, but _a lot_ more distinguished looking.

He contemplated combining the second pipe with his clever disguise. Dad maintained numerous pipes around the household. A father without a pipe was like a strapping roughneck without a toothpick. That is to say, he was a rather piss-poor excuse for a roughneck if you ask me.

John decided not to take the pipe, though. The first one tasted bad enough as it was.

How he suffered for his comedy.

He turned his attention to the captchalogue card sitting on the desk. Yes! This would be perfect for expanding the space in his sylla-

Oh. He had captchalogued the card onto another card in his sylladex by mistake. So much for that.

Sighing, John went to the piano and played a short haunting refrain.

Then he played 52 pick-up, the prankster's favorite card game, even though he was alone in the room, thus rendering it an especially foolish version of Solitaire. It was a stupid idea. The cards just made a mess all over the floor.

John then went back into the living room and contemplated checking the mailbox outside. He thought perhaps he should exhaust all possibilities before plunging headlong into a Dad encounter.

The television was currently airing a commercial for Hi-C's Ecto Cooler juice.

He walked past it and out the front door to go check the mailbox.

Predictably, the mailbox was empty. He had already been scooped by his father.

* * *

Removing his disguise for just a moment, John looked around at his surroundings.

The streets were empty. Wind skimmed the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note was produced. It was the one Desolation played to keep its instrument in tune.

It was his thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something felt missing from his life. The game presently eluding him was only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes were those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle was Absence itself. It was a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It was the most diabolical riddle of all.

"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire." -Walt Whitman

Yes, it was certain Walt Whitman said that. One hundred percent positive.

He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N**: less than/greater than signs don't seem to work on her either (wow that will be annoying with Rose's tree modus later =o=) so if you see "x3" it is supposed to be a heart, not an emoji type thing...haha. Oh well, onward!

* * *

Putting on his clever disguise once more, John checked to see if his father had left the mail in the car.

The door was locked and his dad had the car keys. He peered in through the driver's side window.

He didn't see any mail, but he did see a green package resting on the passenger's seat. There was also something underneath it that looked like a slip of paper.

Could these items have come in the mail? He didn't see anything else that was usually in the mail, like bills and coupons. Maybe Dad forgot to take this stuff inside.

John walked around to the other side of the house to try to get a gander through the kitchen window, but he couldn't see a whole lot. It seemed Dad had been doing so much baking, the glass had steamed up.

God he was so weird.

But he could see what was on the table just beside the window. It looked like the mail was there! Included among it was a red package, some bills, Dad's PDA and an envelope that appeared to be suspiciously labeled with the SBURB logo. Could it be?

Unfortunately, the window was locked.

He headed back inside though the front door. He noticed that one of the arms had fallen off of the harlequin doll as he passed it.

He had no other choice; he had to go in the kitchen. It was time for the clever disguise to work its magic.

In the kitchen, there stood his father, birthday cake in hand. He turned towards John.

His dad saw right through the costume! John didn't know what he was even thinking with this foolish ruse.

He unequipped the clever disguise. Dad wielded a dreaded artifact of confection. He stood between John and the mail.

There was only one way to settle this.

**STRIFE!**

Dad took out a lighter and lit the candles on the cake while John readied his hammer.

He attempted to knock the cake out of his father's hands, but Dad continued to forcefully present the cake to his son.

Suddenly, Dad brandished yet another artifact of confection – a cream pie! The man was ruthless.  
John knew he had better brace for impact in the most comedically striking fashion possible.

He quickly equipped his disguise for defense as Dad threw the pie into his face.

The beagle aegis absorbed the brunt of the treat. It looked like Dad would enjoy the prankster's gambit on that exchange, as was usually the case.

John captchalogued the pie tin currently stuck to his face and unequipped the beagle puss.

Everything in his sylladex was pushed back a card and the smoke pellets were ejected from the deck.

Yes! This could be just the distraction he was –

Nothing happened. The pellets fell out and peacefully landed on the floor. What a huge letdown.

When Dad nearly shoved the cake into his face yet again, John grabbed it and forcefully captchalogued it into his sylladex.

"When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield." -Oscar Wilde

Wise words by a man who likely could resist everything but temptation.

The cake forced Colonel Sassacre's text out of his sylladex, landing on top of the smoke pellets. The incredible weight of the tome caused them to release their smoke.

Sassacre you beautiful bastard.

Now was his chance!

Dad had grabbed a broom and was busy placating the smoke detector, so John could safely sneak away.

But first, he snagged his dad's PDA. Maybe later he would switch the background image to something hilarious as a prank. Besides, it might come in handy later.

The spare captchalogue card was forced out of the sylladex when he took the PDA, and consequently integrated with the deck. He now had five cards to work with.

John quickly captchalogued the red package which was addressed to him, and the SBURB Beta envelope.

He then left the kitchen and took the cake that was sitting on the couch in the living room, expelling the pie tin from the bottom card in the process.

In an attempt to make the cakes into a double decker cake, John accidentally merged the two cakes across all five cards.

Everything in his sylladex was smushed between the cakes on one card. Why didn't he think these things through first?

He retreated upstairs, pausing at the juncture and heading down the hall. He was going to need something to clean up the mess he was about to make by dissecting this cake.

To the left was the bathroom, and to the right was Dad's room. It was locked, and John was forbidden from ever entering. Dad had secrets.

He entered the bathroom. He could see the back yard from the window. The jewel in its crown was the swing set which had provided John with years of joy. There was also a spring-mounted pogo-ride, which had been responsible for more than one painful injury, and had provided him with years of lament.

On the sink was Dad's razor. On the rack to the side was a fresh towel.

John took the razor and used it to perform surgery on the cake, removing the PDA, envelope and package.

He then took the towel and cleaned off the extracted goods.

Retrieving the items forced the manhandled cake out of his sylladex and into the toilet.

John groaned.

Just like that his sylladex was full again. God this thing was annoying.

* * *

In his bedroom, John's computer beeped at him with Pesterchum notifications. However, John opted to admire his Failure to Launch poster.

He wasn't usually into chick-flicks, but Matthew McConaughey's cool charisma could salvage any heap of smoldering wreckage.

This was his "McConaughey Wall", a casual shrine to an amazing actor. The film above that one was a lot better, he thought. A Time to Kill.

"_Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. (chokes up) Now imagine she's white."_

You got us Matthew! Your smooth talking exposed our latent racism! Damn you are good!

Heading to his computer, John checked the awaiting messages left by his chums.

- gardenGnostic **[GG]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 16:34 -

**GG**: hi happy birthday john! x3  
**GG**: helloooooo?  
**GG**: ok i will talk to you later! :D

- gardenGnostic **[GG]** ceased pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 16:56 –

* * *

- turntechGodhead **[TG]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 16:40 -

**TG**: hey GG is looking for you why are you even so popular all of a sudden  
**TG**: is today some sort of special occasion or something  
**TG**: did you do something to curry favor with ladies  
**TG**: did you break your leg on a puppy or some shit  
**TG**: dude what are you doing

- turntechGodhead **[TG]** is now an idle chum! –

**EB**: i discovered a comet that is going to destroy the earth, and it was named after me.  
**EB**: now i am famous, and everyone wants to talk to me a lot.  
**TG**: no stop  
**TG**: just no  
**TG**: dont talk about your awful stupid movies or make references to them  
**TG**: your gross man-bro crush on matt macconahay is an unsavory thing to behold  
**EB**: mcconaughey.  
**TG**: sounds like a noise a horse would make  
**TG**: ie dumb  
**TG**: equally dumb are all those pictures of that clown youve got hanging up  
**EB**: those are my dad's.  
**TG**: i was talking about nick cage  
**EB**: oh, what?! no man, cage is sweet. so sweet.  
**TG**: ha ha so lame  
**TG**: you dont even like him ironically or anything this is like for real isnt it  
**TG**: hahaha  
**EB**: i do things ironically sometimes.  
**EB**: what about what i sent you for your birthday?  
**TG**: no those are awesome  
**EB**: what? no, they're stupid, which was the joke. the IRONIC joke. get it?  
**EB**: wait...  
**EB**: you're actually wearing them, aren't you?  
**TG**: im wearing them ironically  
**TG**: because theyre awesome  
**TG**: the fact that theyre ironic makes them awesome  
**TG**: and vice versa  
**TG**: are you taking notes on how to be cool? jesus get a fucking pen  
**EB**: you do realize they touched stiller's weird, sort of gaunt face at some point.  
**TG**: ew yeah  
**TG**: oh well  
**TG**: anyway speaking of which  
**TG**: did you get the mail  
**EB**: yeah.  
**TG**: did there happen to be a package there  
**EB**: yeah, there's a big red one.  
**TG**: you should probably open it  
**EB**: i would, but it's trapped under the sburb beta, so i will probably open it after i install the beta.  
**TG**: oh man the beta came  
**EB**: yeah! wanna play it?  
**TG**: haha no way  
**EB**: why not!  
**TG**: it sounds so HELLS of boring just get TT to play it she is all about that  
**EB**: where'd she go.  
**TG**: her internet is blinking in and out i guess  
**TG**: probably be back online soon  
**TG**: oh and christ in a sidecar are you still using the stack modus?  
**TG**: seriously dude  
**TG**: you need to BONE UP on your data structures that shit is just ridiculous  
**EB**: ok, i will.

But John decided to space out on the computer for a while before doing anything important.

He opened the Typheus web browser and directed it to what was indisputably the most amazing website ever created, MS Paint Adventures.

The new adventure, Midnight Crew, was ok, but he wasn't sure if he liked it as much as the last one.

But, he decided it was time for less meta and more beta.

He inserted his newly acquired CD into his computer to install the SBURB Beta.

A window popped up indicating that the installation would begin once the server could establish a connection.

What the fuck was this.

Maybe now would be a good time to bone up on his data structures after all.

He went to his closet, where he kept a lot of clothes and an array of handy computer programming guides.

He pulled out _Data Structures for Assholes_. On the front cover there was a splash advertising that the book came with a free fetch modus.

John wasn't sure he really wanted to dig into this huge tome. It looked really boring. And kind of ornery. Maybe he would just check out that free fetch modus instead.

He turned to the back inside cover, where a free fetch modus was included in a plastic sleeve.

This one was dictated by the logic of a queue data structure, operating on a "First In, First Out" method, rather than a "First In, Last Out" method of a stack.

He applied the modus to his sylladex.

Items captchalogued in his sylladex were no longer immediately accessible. He could only use the item on the bottom card, and had to wait for items on upper cards to be pushed back to it.

This modus didn't strike him as a significant upgrade to his previous one. In fact, it almost seemed more inconvenient. He figured he may as well give it a chance though.

He captchalogued one of the cakes.

Finally, he had found a use for all those loitering pastries: dead weight.

Then, he captchalogued the other cake which had been sitting on his bed. The second cake caused the razor to launch out the front of his sylladex.

Oh good lord. _That beautiful face._

It had stuck right into McConaughey's forehead on the A Time to Kill poster.

John wished the razor would have failed to launch.

* * *

Time to get more stuff.

Opening his magic chest, John captchalogued one of his favorite books of all time, _Wise Guy _by Mike Caveney. In doing so, the fresh towel was ejected and gracefully landed on his head.

He figured he may as well grab the trick handcuffs as well, but once he did so the PDA was ejected out of his sylladex like a bullet, smashing through his bedroom window and landing out in the yard.

"Oh dammit." John muttered aloud.

He picked up the red package and examined it. It was from one of his internet chums.

TO: EB

FROM: TG

The tag read. It was bound in packing tape though. He would need something sharp to open it.

Ah, of course! The razor! It was all so simple, he wondered why he didn't –

Picking up the razor caused the package to fly out of his sylladex and knocked him in the head. He picked it up once again, and dodged the cake that came flying out. Better take this from the top.

He took three glass shards from the broken window in quick succession and ducked for cover. The sylladex rained down devastation on his room from above, as another cake, the book and cuffs were expelled.

Now that his cards were packed with glass, he probably didn't want to do that again anytime soon.

Looking out the window, he saw all the stuff scattered about the front yard, with the cuffs hanging from a tree branch. He should probably go get that stuff before he forgot.

But it was time to open the package. He used the razor and opened it up, peering in.

There was something suspicious inside. Something suspiciously dirty and smelly.

It was a stuffed bunny. Much like the one held hostage briefly by Malkovich's Cyrus "The Virus" while taunting hard-luck protagonist Cameron Poe. And strikingly similar to the one scooped up from the soot of a burning Vegas strip by Cage's Poe and offered to his daughter, a gesture symbolic of a tattered exterior surrounding a heart of gold. Poe wasn't much to look at. But he was a good man.

But no, it was not merely _like_ that bunny. According to the included note of authenticity, it was the very _same_ bunny!

This was so awesome.

John's computer began beeping at him with notifications; it looked like it was trying to get his attention.

Looking at the screen, the SBURB client window read,

SBURB version 0.0.1

C SKAINET SYSTEMS INCORPORATED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SBURB client is running.

A SBURB host user is attempting to connect with you.

Client has established connection with host.

Press [ENTER] when ready.

Pesterchum appeared to be blinking as well.

- tentacleTherapist **[TT]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 17:08 -

**TT**: It looks like you managed to retrieve the beta. Excellent.  
**TT**: I'm going to try to connect.  
**EB**: whoa ok but i just got the most awesome present.  
**TT**: The rabbit?  
**EB**: SO SWEET.  
**TT**: I've heard tales of this wretched creature often. Its Homeric legend is practically ensconced in the fold of my personal mythology by now.  
**EB**: ha ha, what?  
**TT**: Why don't we focus on the matter at hand?  
**EB**: oh the game, ok.  
**EB**: i don't really know how this works. what am i even looking at here?  
**TT**: You are running the client application. I am running the server, so I am the host user. I have established a connection with you. This is sufficient for us to play the game.  
**EB**: oh, ok then.  
**TT**: Why don't we get started?

Returning to the awaiting SBURB window, John pressed the Enter button on his keyboard and watched as the screen turned white with a green circular patterned logo in the center and the progress bar at the bottom.

The logo morphed and changed colors as the game installed, as did the background. It even played a little upbeat medley while he waited for it to finish.

Then the screen went black, and the word SBURB appeared in bold green letters.

The installation was complete.


	6. Chapter 5

tentacleTherapist's computer screen showed a view of John's bedroom, with the game interface above it. There was a green navigation bubble in the upper left corner, and a bar with some different options for her to click on.

There was the regular selection cursor, shaped like the green SBURB house logo, the revision and deployment cursors, something called the Phernalia Registry, Grist Cache, Alchemy Excursus and Explore Atheneum.

She clicked on the Selection cursor, and used it to move John's magic chest. With it in the possession of her cursor, she navigated to the outside view of the Egbert home and dropped the chest onto the roof.

**EB**: whoa, what are you doing?  
**TT**: Sorry. I'm just getting a feel for the controls.  
**EB**: is my magic chest on the roof now?  
**TT**: Yes.  
**EB**: :(  
**TT**: I will try to be more careful next time.

In the place where the chest had previously been was a pink card. It was John's missing stack fetch modus! It must have been under the chest this whole time.

He quickly reapplied it to his sylladex.

Now he could opt for either the stack or queue modus at any time. With gleeful abandon, John toggled between his fetch modi.

A sound of a car engine was heard.

John went to the window and looked outside.

It looked like his dad was leaving again for more baking supplies. He was relieved to have the house to himself again, if only for a few minutes.

He just hoped he didn't notice the magic chest on the roof. Or all the shit he had thrown out the window, for that matter.

**EB**: hey, do you think you could do me a favor?  
**EB**: can you grab all that stuff outside my broken window and bring it in for me?  
**TT**: I'll give it a shot.  
**EB**: thx!  
**TT**: No luck.  
**TT**: It appears to be out of range. I'm guessing it is too far away from you, the "player".  
**EB**: :C

After failing at her attempt to retrieve John's items, TT thought she would try selecting John himself, for the fun of it. But one could not select a _player!_

John abjured the meddlesome cursor.

Instead, she selected the stuffed bunny on his bed and put it back in the box.

John grinned in delight.

Now it was time to make some revisions.

She clicked on the Revision cursor and dragged out a new section in John's room. The addition stuck out of the top floor of the house.

She then opened the Phernalia Registry, revealing three strange machines to choose from – the Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe and Alchemiter.

In the new area of the room she deployed the Totem Lathe.

John looked at it, confused. He didn't know what the heck this thing did, but it looked neat!

Next, TT opened the Grist Cache. It opened a screen with numerous slots, but only five were currently unlocked and visible. There were blue, purple, white, yellow and green grist that she could see, but they currently only had 16/20 of the blue grist.

**TT**: It seems expanding the dimensions of your room cost us some "Build Grist".  
**TT**: But deploying the lathe did not appear to incur any expense.  
**TT**: It looks like certain objects are freebies, probably to help you set up the game.  
**EB**: wow, ok.  
**EB**: what do they do?  
**TT**: I think it's up to you to find out.  
**TT**: All I can do is drop stuff in your house, and move it around, apparently.  
**EB**: how do i move stuff around? it sounds fun!  
**TT**: I don't think you can as the client. You will need to install the server application.  
**TT**: You should have received both in separate envelopes. I am running both on my computer right now.  
**EB**: what?  
**TT**: Did you get another envelope in the mail?  
**EB**: no!  
**TT**: Once you install the server and establish a connection, I'm sure you will be able to manipulate my environment in the same manner.  
**TT**: Are you sure you didn't get it?  
**EB**: oh man.  
**EB**: i think i might know where it is.

John thought of the green package and what looked to be an envelope that he had seen in his dad's car earlier.

**TT**: Now that your room is bigger, why don't you move to the far corner?  
**TT**: It will extend the range of the cursor, and I can reach the items.  
**TT**: Which... you threw out the window for some reason?  
**EB**: good idea!  
**TT**: What have you been doing in here all afternoon, anyway?  
**EB**: ugh, i was fussing with my retarded sylladex.  
**EB**: but i think i have it under control now.  
**EB**: what modus do you use?  
**TT**: I like to use trees.  
**EB**: oh no, that sounds so awkward.  
**TT**: It's not exceptionally practical.  
**TT**: But I think they are elegant.

He went to go stand in the corner as TT brought up his items, smiling as they were placed beside him.

After she had done that, TT went to deploy another machine, seeing that a new option was available as well – the Pre-punched Card.

Clicking on the Cruxtruder, she placed the large machine in front of the front door down in the living room. And then she put the Alchemiter, the largest of all the machines, out back on the upstairs balcony.

In the process she saw that another machine, the Punch Designix was available at the cost of 4 purple grist.

**EB**: why is the floor shaking?  
**EB**: are you dropping more stuff in my house?  
**TT**: Yes. Two more large gizmos.  
**EB**: sweet!  
**EB**: what is with all these big contraptions?  
**TT**: If I had to guess, they appear to facilitate a sort of system involving punch card-based alchemy.  
**EB**: huh.  
**EB**: to what end?  
**EB**: i mean what are we supposed to be doing in this game?  
**TT**: That remains to be seen.  
**TT**: Maybe you should go investigate?

John grabbed his dad's PDA, switching back to stack modus so it was readily accessible.

The interface was oddly sterile. No hilarious clown wallpapers or anything like that. (Oops, I mean harlequin wallpapers.)

The SERIOUS BUSINESS application was open. It seemed Dad used it to keep tabs on various acquaintances... his fellow street performers, maybe?

John couldn't help but to read through it a little bit.

The following matters have been submitted in a frank and forthright manner for **pipefan413's** judicious appraisal.

_f_ **grayslacks66** – 17:24

Decided to return home for fresh tie. Soiled tie will be laundered immediately upon return.

_f_ **wellPressedAttire** – 17:23

Use ballpoint pen to roll up tip of cloth. Extract pen. Press rolled cloth against ceramic surface, e.g. restroom sink. In future: consider repositioning hat hook and/or coffee pot.

_f_ **officeurchin1280** – 17:23

Photographic documentation of incident?

_f_ **grayslacks66** – 17:22

Was posturing unevenly to reach for hat on wall hook. Tip of tie slipped in open mouth of pot. Duration of "dunk": approx. 3 seconds.

_f_ **2busy4this** – 17:22

pl elab on 'incident'

_f_ **grayslacks66** – 17:21

Need counsel on removing coffee from necktie. Incident occurred 45 seconds ago. Beverage essences rapidly settling into fabric.

He guessed the performing arts must be pretty serious business after all.

He closed out the SERIOUS BUSINESS app and installed Pesterchum. It should be useful. Now he could keep tabs on his chums while he wandered around the house.

Stepping out to the balcony, John stood beside the massive alchemiter.

**EB**: hey, i'm out on the balcony now.  
**EB**: i am messaging from my dad's pda.  
**TT**: The one you threw into the yard?  
**EB**: no, i am telling you.  
**EB**: it jumped out of my sylladex like a frightened weasel.  
**TT**: What were you doing with it in the first place?  
**TT**: I am not sensing a lot of regard for the personal property of others.  
**TT**: Is this how your pent-up frustration with your father manifests itself?  
**EB**: what? no.  
**EB**: those were all accidents.  
**EB**: please take your psycho-babblery elsewhere, miss!  
**TT**: Your bathroom is a mess.  
**TT**: Did you do that too?  
**EB**: oh man, see this isn't cool.  
**EB**: all this snooping nonsense!  
**TT**: There's a cake in the toilet.  
**EB**: yes. there is.  
**TT**: I'm tempted to clean it up for you.  
**EB**: ok, if that will satisfy your weird ocd complex then go ahead.  
**TT**: My Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder complex?  
**TT**: Can a disorder also be a complex?  
**EB**: in your case, probably!  
**TT**: Sounds complicated.  
**EB**: anyway...  
**EB**: i am going to have a look at this enormous platformy thing you put on the balcony.

John had no idea what to do with this thing. He couldn't find any controls for it.

Having exhausted all other possibilities, he just decided to stand on it.

After a few seconds he climbed off, and peered through his telescope.

It was a clear, sunny day. Nothing out of the ordinary to report. At least, not beyond the walls of his own home.

Meanwhile, TT decided she would do some tidying up around John's house and picked up the cake soiled toilet in the bathroom. But, in doing so she pried the entire thing out, including the floor where it had been.

**TT**: Whoops.  
**EB**: whoops what?

She dragged the mess out into the yard, and set it next to the pogo-ride.

**EB**: what was that noise?  
**EB**: is this something i should go investigate?  
**TT**: No, I have it under control.  
**TT**: You can keep playing with your telescope.

John disregarded her suggestion and went to investigate anyway. He thought he would look in the bathroom first, since it sounded like the noise had come from there.

**EB**: augh!  
**TT**: I think I can patch it up.  
**TT**: Just give me a little space.  
**TT**: Why don't you go have a look at the Cruxtruder?  
**EB**: the what?  
**TT**: The thing I put in your living room.

He approached the newly formed hole in his bathroom floor and looked down. He could see straight through to the floor below!

He hopped down the hole, landing on the dryer in the utility room.

On the floor lay a sledgehammer and green captchalogue card.

John took the two items, combining them and quickly applying it to his strife specibus.

He thought it was cool that things didn't always have to be a federal fucking issue.

The PDA beeped at him from his sylladex.

It looked like another one of his chums was pestering him.

- gardenGnostic **[GG]** began pestering ectoBiologist** [EB]** at 17:25 -

**GG**: john did you get my package?  
**EB**: oh hey!  
**EB**: no, not yet.  
**GG**: darn! are you sure? it was in a green box...  
**EB**: oh!  
**EB**: yes, but it is in my dad's car and he is still out at the store.  
**EB**: he should be back soon.  
**GG**: great! so what are you up to today?  
**EB**: i am up to my neck in this sburb stuff.  
**EB**: TT is making a royal mess of my house.  
**GG**: lol!  
**GG**: whats sburb?  
**EB**: oh, it is this game.  
**EB**: it's ok i guess. i'm still figuring it out.  
**GG**: whoa what was that?  
**EB**: what was what?  
**GG**: there was a loud noise outside my house!  
**GG**: it sounded like an explosion!  
**EB**: wow, really?  
**GG**: i will go outside and look...  
**EB**: oh man, alright but be careful, ok?  
**GG**: i will! :)

- gardenGnostic **[GG]** ceased pestering ectoBiologist** [EB]** at 17:28 –

* * *

John figured he might as well check out the Cruxtruder now and headed into the living room.

**EB**: oh hell no, you put this thing in front of the door?  
**TT**: There's a door there?  
**EB**: um, YEAH?  
**TT**: I didn't see it.  
**TT**: I just thought it fit nicely into that groove.  
**EB**: you mean you thought it was elegant?  
**EB**: ok well what do i do with this thing.  
**EB**: hello?  
**EB**: what are you doing up there now?

TT attempted to move the bathtub over the spot where the toilet had been, but just made another gaping hole in the floor.

**TT**: Oh fuck.

Looking at the Cruxtruder, John noticed a small wheel near the top. When he turned the wheel, something seemed to be pushing up from underneath the lid. But he wasn't strong enough to make the lid come off.

Still dealing with the tub, TT tried moving it to the driveway. But on its journey, the connection was interrupted and the tub fell onto the upstairs landing with a thud.

John turned around when he heard the noise. What was that doing there? Whatever the reason, he thought, he should at least go sit in it for humorous purposes.

And he did.

**EB**: you can see me, right.  
**EB**: tell me what is wrong with this picture.  
**TT**: Sorry. I keep losing the wireless signal.  
**TT**: Must be the weather.  
**TT**: I would look for a stronger signal in another part of the house, but I'd rather not risk an encounter with my mother.  
**TT**: I battled through her cloud of gin and derision once already this evening.  
**EB**: haha, yeah I hear you.  
**TT**: Yes. Cake, jesters, unfaltering love and support.  
**TT**: Quite a road to hoe there.  
**TT**: Though I suppose I'm complicit for not informing Social Services about your situation.  
**EB**: i know!  
**EB**: what about going outside?  
**EB**: maybe you could catch a neighbor's signal.  
**TT**: That presents the same problem.  
**TT**: Also, it's raining, remember?  
**TT**: And dark.  
**EB**: It's dark already?  
**TT**: Yes, the sun has already had its way with us here on the east coast.  
**TT**: Its lurid glare has moved on to younger timezones.  
**EB**: haha, um, ok.

Returning once more to the Cruxtruder, John got out his sledgehammer, intending to hit the lid with it. But he struggled in being able to swing it – this hammer was not a light object!

**TT**: Need some help?

TT used the cursor to click on John's hammer and bring it up to whack the lid of the Cruxtruder. As soon as she did so, the lid popped off and light came flashing out of the top followed by a strange object.

It was circular, and floated above the Cruxtruder as it flashed blue, black and white, its pattern constantly in a state of movement.

In the middle of the machine, a new panel lit up displaying a countdown at 4:13 and going down by the second.

**EB**: what is this thing?  
**EB**: and what is that clock counting down to?  
**TT**: I've been looking at the GameFAQ walkthroughs to figure some of this stuff out.  
**TT**: Hold while I read further.  
**EB**: ok.  
**TT**: All of these walkthroughs are extremely short.  
**TT**: None progress much further than this point.  
**EB**: weird.  
**EB**: well, i mean it is a new game.  
**TT**: True.  
**TT**: Now that the lid is off, you will need to extrude some "Cruxite".

John went to try and turn the wheel again. This time, a cyan colored cylinder popped out – the Cruxite Dowel.

He quickly captchalogued it.

**TT**: I feel like we should be hurrying. That countdown is making me nervous.  
**TT**: John?  
**TT**: Oh. Your PDA is trapped under the cruxite now, isn't it.  
**TT**: Anyway, it looks like you are going to need this card too.

She deployed the Pre-punched Card and placed it in front of John. It was full of mechanically punched holes and had what appeared to be an image of an apple on it.

He added it to his sylladex, expelling a shard of glass in the process and maiming the nearby harlequin doll.

Then he picked up two fanciful harlequins from his dad's shelf, causing more glass to fly from the deck. One shard sliced through the doll's left eye on its way out.

The additional useless freight pushed his PDA to the last card. John then switched to the queue modus so he could access it.

Beside him, the circular thing from the Cruxtruder frantically spewed out symbols and noises.

**EB**: this thing keeps following me around.  
**EB**: i think it's trying to talk to me or something.  
**TT**: That is probably the "Kernelsprite".  
**TT**: It apparently needs to be "prototyped".  
**TT**: Twice, actually.  
**TT**: Whatever the hell that means.  
**TT**: These walkthroughs are horrendously written.  
**EB**: hmm, ok.  
**EB**: well, you are the one with the cursor so just do whatever you think is the right thing to do!  
**EB**: also, fix my bathroom.

Grabbing the maimed harlequin doll with the cursor, TT dragged it over to the Kernelsprite and dropped it on top of it.

The Kernelsprite went crazy and it lit up the room once again with a bright light.


	7. Chapter 6

The Kernelsprite had been prototyped with the harlequin doll.

It now appeared as the floating blue head of the maimed doll with its one menacing arm raised in a mocking sort of way.

**EB**: i still can't understand this thing's gobbledygook.  
**TT**: That was only "Tier One Prototyping".  
**TT**: There is still another tier to the prototyping process.  
**TT**: Which for all we know merely advances this entity through increasingly esoteric states of linguistics.  
**EB**: the clock is ticking.  
**EB**: we don't have time for this asinine tomfoolery.  
**TT**: This unmitigated poppycock?  
**EB**: extravagant hogwash!  
**EB**: ok stop  
**EB**: stop typing whatever silly thing you're typing.  
**EB**: i'm going upstairs to the big platformy thing.  
**TT**: The alchemiter?  
**EB**: ?  
**TT**: Try to learn the lingo.

Returning to the upstairs balcony, John examined the Alchemiter. But there was no slot for a card anywhere to be found on it!

The Kernelsprite followed him upstairs.

TT opened up the Atheneum and noticed that acquiring a Cruxite Dowel seemed to have populated the Atheneum with one item: a Perfectly Generic Object, which just looked like a plain green cube.

John snatched the telescope from its tripod, captchaloguing it. Who knows, it might prove to be useful. But more importantly, it pushed the cruxite to the last card making it available for tinkering.

In doing so, the PDA was predictably jettisoned into the yard and over the neighbor's fence.

He then placed the Cruxite Dowel on the weird pattern that covered the Alchemiter's small pedestal.

Something began to happen.

The long arm of the machine unfurled and began scanning the dowel with a red laser.

The center platform then glowed for a brief moment before three green cubes appeared out of thin air.

He had set the Alchemiter to cast three (3) Perfectly Generic Objects for some reason, expending a total of 6 units of Build Grist.

These things looked completely useless. What a waste!

* * *

Out of the corner of his eye, John noticed there was something in the sky.

He switched his sylladex back to Stack Modus and got a closer look with his telescope.

Whatever it was, the Kernelsprite seemed particularly agitated about it. It shook violently as it rapidly flashed blue, white and black.

Through the telescope John saw what appeared to be some sort of shooting star.

No, it was a blazing meteor headed to earth!

Downstairs, the countdown on the Cruxtruder continued winding down each second, now at 3:09.

John was no astronomer, but its trajectory looked suspiciously head-on with his current perspective.

He swallowed nervously. This was a troubling development.

The Kernelsprite floated nearby with its arm raised, and John cautiously gave it a high-five. He figured he had left it hanging long enough.

In a momentary lapse of judgment, John mulled over the idea of ingesting a unit of Build Grist.

It was tempting because they strongly resembled Rockin' Blue Raspberry Gushers. However, units of Build Grist were a gaming abstraction and did not seem to exist on the physical plane!

There was apparently no crisis so imminent that would deter him from contemplating idiotic and frivolous actions.

* * *

Dad had returned and pulled the car into the driveway.

**TT**: Your dad is getting home.  
**TT**: John?  
**TT**: What did you do with your PDA this time?  
**TT**: I'm working on the bathroom.  
**TT**: But we are running low on Build Grist.

TT took her cursor and dragged out a new floor for the bathroom, filling in the holes she had made previously.

Meanwhile, Dad walked up to the front door to try and get in the house, but found that the door would not move.

Perplexed, he went into the yard and saw the toilet sitting there, cake filled and all. This only caused him more confusion.

* * *

Running to his room, John looked at his computer and saw that two chums had been trying to message him.

**TT**: I'm working on the bathroom.  
**TT**: But we are running low on Build Grist.  
**EB**: oh man who cares about the bathroom, now there's a meteor heading for my house!  
**TT**: I see.  
**TT**: Do you suppose it has anything to do with the game?  
**EB**: i don't know, maybe! what do i do!  
**TT**: I think it's very likely.  
**TT**: The walkthroughs vaguely suggest an impending threat before they end.  
**TT**: The already poorly constructed sentences become even more curt and ambiguous.  
**TT**: As if written hastily and with a sense of alarm.  
**TT**: Actually, their dedication to updating the walkthrough under such circumstances is admirable.  
**EB**: wow, FASCINATING.  
**EB**: ?  
**TT**: If the meteor is a game construct, I think the only thing to do is to proceed, and try to solve the dilemma on the game's terms.  
**TT**: Try using the lathe.  
**TT**: It says you can use the card on it, but isn't more specific than that.  
**EB**: ok i'll do that.  
**TT**: Really, it is a labor to read this drivel.  
**TT**: If I read any more my brain will need to be spoon-fed from a jar.  
**TT**: While it blows spit bubbles in a highchair.  
**TT**: I think I will write my own walkthrough.  
**TT**: That is, after we make sure you don't die.

* * *

- turntechGodhead **[TG]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 17:34 -

**TG**: i heard you got the box  
**TG**: i hope you appreciate my heroic fatherly perseverance in getting it to you  
**TG**: in my rough and tumble dirty wifebeaterly sort of way  
**TG**: also i hope you appreciate how many no-talent douches had their mitts on that bunny before you  
**TG**: its like a grubby baton in some huge douchebag marathon  
**TG**: hey where are you  
**EB**: oh man, the bunny was awesome, but i don't have time to talk, i'm playing sburb and it's kind of a nightmare.  
**EB**: TT is breaking everything in my house.  
**TG**: dude i told you to steer clear of that game  
**TG**: and for that matter you should probably wash your hands of flighty broads and their snarky horseshit altogether  
**EB**: and now there's a meteor coming, and i'm not even joking about that!  
**EB**: it's like a big asteroid or comet or something.  
**EB**: in the sky.  
**EB**: heading right for my house!  
**TG**: oh man  
**TG**: how big is it  
**EB**: i dunno.  
**EB**: big, i guess.  
**EB**: i gotta go!  
**EB**: we'll talk later if i am still alive and the earth isn't blown up.  
**TG**: like the size of texas  
**TG**: or just rhode island  
**TG**: theyre always throwing around these geographical comparisons to give us a sense of scale like it really means anything to us  
**TG**: but its like it doesnt matter its always just like: WOW THATS PRETTY FUCKING BIG  
**TG**: like mr president theres a meteor coming sir. oh yeah, how big is it? its the size of texas sir  
**TG**: OH SHIT  
**TG**: or, how big is it? its the size of new york city sir  
**TG**: OH SHIT  
**TG**: sir im afraid the comet is the size of your moms dick  
**TG**: OH SNAP  
**TG**: sir are you familiar with jupiter  
**TG**: you mean like the planet?  
**TG**: yeah  
**TG**: well its that big sir  
**TG**: hmm that sounds pretty big  
**TG**: i have a question  
**TG**: is it jupiter?  
**TG**: yes sir, earth is literally under seige by planet fucking jupiter  
**TG**: OH SHIT  
**TG**: anyway later

John got up and walked over to the Totem Lathe in his room.

He slipped the Pre-punched card into a slot on the machine. Above, the Tool Arm deployed a configuration of chisels.

Now he just needed something to lathe.

Cursing his lack of foresight, he decided to return to the balcony for the Cruxite Dowel he left on the pedestal.

He navigated the upstairs hallway leery of his dad, who was presently puzzling over the new bathtub fixture in his hallway.

Meanwhile, TT removed the cakes from the toilet outside and plopped them onto the pogo ride. She then picked up the toilet with the old floor still attached to it and returned it to the bathroom.

The perfect crime.

Dad just shrugged and headed back downstairs, presumably to do some more baking.

If only he knew how his son was hard at work saving his ass.

* * *

When he had retrieved the Cruxite Dowel, John clamped the cruxite in the lathe.

He activated it and watched as the chisels came down to carve one (1) Totem, which he then took and placed in his sylladex.

**EB**: alright, i used the lathe to make this blue shapey thing.  
**EB**: now i guess i take it back to the alchemixer again?  
**EB**: hello?

- tentacleTherapist **[TT]** is no longer connected! -

**EB**: uh...

Right as she had been in the process of moving the bathtub, TT had lost her connection once more, and dropped the tub right back in the hall in front of John's bedroom door.

The timer on the Cruxtruder now was at 2:10.

John tried opening his door, but found that the tub was blocking his way. He was stuck.


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Like I mentioned earlier, greater than/less than symbols don't seem to work, so to keep things simple I used +/- in place of them for dealing with the tree modus. But on to the story, yes?

* * *

A young lady with short blonde hair stood in her room wearing a t-shirt with an evil looking lavender squiddle on it and a skirt.

Due to a violent storm, her house had just lost power, along with her wireless internet connection. This had severed her link to a popular video game she was playing with a young man at a critical moment. That young man was relying on this young lady to reestablish a connection somehow. This young lady named…

Named…

It's on the tip of my tongue. What was the name of this young lady again?

Flighty Broad? No, that wasn't it!

Let's see, one more time…Rose LaLonde? Yes, that was it!

Her name was Rose. As was previously mentioned, she was without electricity, although her laptop computer was still functioning on battery power.

She had a variety of interests. She had a passion for rather obscure literature, many books of which could be found on her tall bookshelf. She also enjoyed creative writing, but was somewhat secretive about it.

She had a fondness for the bestially strange and fictitious, as evidenced by the posters hanging above her bed, and sometimes dabbled in psychoanalysis.

She also liked to knit, and her room was a bit of a mess as many of her knittings lay scattered about the floor. And on occasion, if just the right one struck her fancy, she liked to play video games with her friends.

The thought of retrieving her arms from the purple box in the corner of her bedroom crossed her mind, but the purple package's contents were private! No one was allowed to look inside, and she pushed it into a cabinet.

Her writing journals, which lay on the floor beside her bed, were also for her eyes only. She quickly kicked them under the bed.

Rose walked back to the cabinet where she had hidden her box and took her violin which was sitting atop it. She captchalogued it, sorting it in the root card of her sylladex.

Then she wasted approximately 40 seconds playing the violin while her friend was in peril.

* * *

Still locked in his room, John walked over to one of his movie posters to tell Liv Tyler he loved her before impact.

Since his good for nothing friend was obviously not going to bail him out in time, he issued words of parting fondness to dear, sweet Liv. Oh, if only Affleck could have been the one to make the final sacrifice instead of her stubborn, blue collar, salt-of-the-earth father. Then she would fall into John's arms for consolation, and _he_ would be the one to make the deceased Bruce Willis proud.

* * *

Rose captchalogued her knitting supply bag, which had been sitting on her bed. It occupied the leaf card under the violin, per the Tree Modus's alphabetical sorting method.

K- V.

Looking out her panoramic window offered Rose a view of the thunderstorm that raged outside and her yard below, with the mini mausoleum housing her dead cat, Jaspers, who died when she was young. Her mom had the structure erected with a spirit of scornful irony in response to Rose's youthfully innocent request to hold a funeral for the animal. At least, that is how she had come to interpret the gesture in retrospect.

She could also make out the silhouette of the laboratory next door, a facility which likely broadcasted a strong wireless internet signal. She may be able to connect to the signal from a different part of the house. Perhaps if she sought higher ground?

Rose captchalogued her laptop and prepared to make the journey through the house.

L- V. L+ K.

This caused the tree to be unbalanced, so her sylladex auto-balanced itself. Now the laptop occupied the root card, while the other two items comprised the leaves.

K- L. V+ L.

She then picked up the large book that had been on her desk, the _Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious. _This book was absolutely indispensable for enthusiasts of her ilk. Of which there were very few.

She placed it in her sylladex. G+ L, G- K.

Stepping out into the hall, she looked to her left.

Hanging just next to her door in the hallway was a painting of an exquisite wizard. Her mother collected these awful things ironically. She must have known how much Rose detested them, and there was no doubt in her mind Mom stored these dreadful things in the house to bother her.

Down the hall and to the right was the way to the observatory. Perhaps she would be able to connect up there.

Her mother's room was also that way. She would have to watch her step.

Rose tiptoed toward the observatory and approached a juncture in the hallway. Beyond the juncture was the observatory.

She edged cautiously to the juncture, on the lookout for her mom who was undoubtedly lurking nearby.

She made a stealthy jump to the other side and continued on her way through the dark hall.

Soon she stood in front of the door that led to her destination. She hadn't ventured up there in quite some time.

The door opened to an exterior walkway, leading to the tower's entrance.

Rain hammered down on Rose from above, instantly soaking her. She had seen less inclement weather before.

_'Oh, the things I'll do to help out a friend.'_ She thought to herself.

She hurried inside and up the steps, entering the observatory – empty except for the great telescope pointed skyward.

First, Rose put her laptop down on the floor to get it situated, but removing it from the root card caused all the branches and leaves to be severed! All her items were dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

She decided she may as well see what she could observe while she was up here.

She was in a hurry, sure, but that didn't mean she couldn't take a moment to peek through the huge telescope.

Looking through, she found a gap in the clouds. It seemed a flurry of smaller meteorites was streaking steadily overheard. She wasn't sure what this meant, but it was somewhat disconcerting.

Turning back to her scattered items, Rose stacked her laptop on the _Grimoire_ for maximized elevation, and sat down in front of it on the floor.

She needed every advantage she could get.

Now it was time to access the laboratory wifi network.

There were several signals being broadcasted from the laboratory, each of relatively decent strength. One of them was mysteriously and quite conveniently unsecured, requiring no password.

She selected the signal and reconnected the game with John.


	9. Chapter 8

The countdown was at a mere 40 seconds now.

John typed frantically into his Pesterchum client.

**TT**: I'm back.**  
****EB**: hurry up and open my door!**  
****EB**: not that it even matters, i think i'm probably dead no matter what!**  
****TT**: Patience. You still haven't used the new totem.**  
****EB**: ?**  
****TT**: I believe it will create the item on the punch card.**  
****EB**: so what is it, like an apple or something?**  
****EB**: what good will that even do?**  
****TT**: We'll see.**  
****TT**: I've found no evidence that anyone has successfully created the item.**  
****TT**: And the content of the card appears to be variable from session to session.**  
****TT**: In one instance it was described as an "eggy loking thign" [sic].**  
****EB**: do we have enough of those building jewels to make it?**  
****TT**: According to the Atheneum, it is a free item.**  
****TT**: This speaks to its importance, in my view.**  
****TT**: Now off you go.

Rose maneuvered the cursor and removed John's bedroom door from its hinges, freeing him from his prison.

There went the rest of the Build Grist.

She then put the bathtub back where it belonged in the bathroom. In retrospect, she probably should have just done this in the first place.

John took his carved totem out to the Alchemiter and placed it on the small pedestal. But before he could do anything, he had to get those stupid green blocks he had made earlier out of the way!

The Kernelsprite was getting awfully worked up about all of this!

Rose clicked on the Perfectly Generic Objects and stored them in the Phernalia Registry, potentially to be deployed at a later time.

Now the Alchemiter was ready to go.

The arm came out and scanned the totem, producing a blue tree with a single cyan apple.

Then, the tree dropped its apple into John's arms and subsequently disappeared.

The timer continued winding down as the meteor prepared to crash down to earth.

John stood holding the apple, unsure of what to do next. He looked around at his neighborhood full of uniform white houses, which would soon certainly be devastated by the approaching impact.

But before he knew it, it was too late. The timer had reached zero, and John found himself face to face with the meteor, about to be crushed in its fiery blaze. So he did the only thing he could think of.

He took a bite of the apple. And then, nothing. He could only see a bright white light as the meteor hit.

There was only the vast explosion that followed.


	10. END OF ACT ONE

Years in the future, but not many…

A Wayward Vagabond recorded a stuttering step in the sun-bleached dust.

The sand stretched for miles as far as the eye could see, with only the long-forgotten ruins of cityscape looming in the distance.

He could not remember from where he had come, and could only walk. And walk, and walk…

Suddenly, he came upon something white peeking out from beneath one of the dunes.

Curious, he approached it and brushed the sand off of the flat, round surface sticking out from the rest of it.

There was a strange symbol printed on it, worn from time. It was unknown to him, but others may have recognized it as a symbol from the game known as SBURB.


	11. Act Two: Chapter 9

**ACT TWO - Raise of the Conductor's Baton**

* * *

Sburb Beta Walkthrough

Version 1.0, April 13, 2009.

by tentacleTherapist

============================= TABLE OF CONTENTS =============================

1. Caveats and Condolences... [0000]

2. Walkthrough (Incomplete)... [A000]

* * *

[0000] Caveats and Condolences

* * *

I'd be inclined to dispense with the trite even under less pressing circumstances. Needless to say I'll forgo the ASCII banner which typically heralds the striking freefall of these documents. I'll also resist the urge to brandish any copyright marks, or the particular neurosis the concerns itself with the theft of the utterly mundane – I'll allow other deranged prospectors to stake claims on their worthless plots as the woods burn around them. My introduction will be sparse. There will be no majestic prose blustering into the sails of a galleon as we embark on this voyage together. Nor will there be any hamfisted prose whipping its limbs under a bedsheet like a retarded ghost, for that matter. I won't set the stage, or dim the lights. The mood, you will see, will be set soon enough.

Since you are reading this, chances are you have installed the game on your computer already. If this is true, like many others, you have just participated in bringing about the end of the world.

But don't beat yourself up about it. There was never anything you could have done to prevent it. The end is happening right now, as I type, and as you read. I have come to understand that were always doomed through our collective ignorance, and now further doomed by those few who know, and struggle to flee. If you're lucky, you'll be among the smaller subset of the latter who are successful.

What I mean is, while that game you installed is just one more grinding slab of rock sealing our planet's crypt, it is also your only hope to live. I'm presently faced with the same conundrum as you, and though I speak with more expertise, my own outcome is far from assured. I will "play the game," as much of it as there is to play, and record my findings here. If you want to live, you will do as I instruct.

My condolences.

~TT


	12. Chapter 10

An eerie darkness had fallen over the Egbert home, and John and his dad suddenly felt that they were no longer alone in their home.

After the explosion from the meteor, John found himself alive and still standing on his balcony, apple in hand, but the surroundings had changed vastly.

His home stood isolated on a tall, lonesome cliff in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. The sky was black, and below the cliff stretched into clouds and more darkness, with no bottom in sight.

It was at this point that the Kernel divided. The halves went their separate ways, one into the dark clouds below, and the other up into the sky, creating what appeared to be a series of strange blue portals above John's house leading further upwards. This left behind the Sprite portion.

'_BOY.'_

What was left of the Sprite underwent a mysterious transformation. The maimed harlequin sprite was now a full ghost-like figure, floating beside John.

For a moment, he thought he heard someone say "BOY," as if whispered in the periphery of his awareness.

It was probably just his imagination though.

_'YOU THERE. BOY.'_

John thought he heard the voice again, but continued to ignore it.

The Sprite was also attempting to communicate, but he still couldn't understand a word this idiot said.

Wondering where his dad was, John decided to walk around his house and see what had happened after the supposed transport.

When he entered the kitchen, Dad was nowhere to be found. There was only a strange black substance smeared on the floor.

John took his finger and ran it through the thick guck.

Was this…

Oil?

He wondered what happened in here. Where was his dad?

Wherever he went, he seemed to have left in a hurry; all his baking supplies had been left behind.

For all his absurdities John had to put up with, he sure wished he was here right now.

Heading outside, he noticed that the power to his house had been cut in the "move." Yet through some mysterious force, the house still seemed to be powered, even though the wires were severed. Quite bizarre.

* * *

'_BOY. QUIT ALL THIS SCURRYING AROUND.'_

For the last time, this boy's name is John!

_'FINE. JOHN. RETURN TO YOUR QUARTERS.'_

John went back up to his bedroom, tiptoeing around all the weird petroleum-based sludge that had found its way into his home.

_'NOW JOHN. RESPOND TO YOUR FRIEND UNIT.'_

**TT**: John?  
**TT**: Are you there?

- tentacleTherapist **[TT]** is now an idle chum! -

**EB**: hey, yeah i'm here!  
**EB**: and not dead i think.  
**TT**: I know.  
**TT**: I've been watching you scramble through the house like a lunatic.  
**TT**: You should have answered me sooner.  
**EB**: oh man, sorry, i was looking around for my dad and i can't find him anywhere!  
**EB**: have you seen him?  
**TT**: No. I'm sure he'll turn up.  
**TT**: We have more important things to address right now.  
**EB**: yeah, like where am i?  
**TT**: I don't know that either. But I've determined your neighborhood was destroyed by the meteor. Wherever you were transported, it saved you from the impact.  
**TT**: I've been reading reports in the news. Over the last few days, there have been many smaller meteor collisions with people's homes around the world.  
**TT**: And they seem to be getting bigger. Yours was the biggest they've identified so far.  
**EB**: wow, ok.  
**EB**: so then i guess if this is all the game's doing, then the point is for us to save the world?  
**TT**: Perhaps.  
**EB**: then we'd better get moving and figure this game out!  
**TT**: Yes, but wait.  
**TT**: We should retrieve your PDA. Yet again.  
**TT**: It will help to keep tabs on each other while you investigate.  
**TT**: I think I can get you closer to it, if I can replenish our grist supply somewhat.  
**TT**: There may be a way to recycle some that we already used.  
**EB**: ok.  
**TT**: I'll meet you out on the balcony.  
**EB**: wait, rose! one thing...  
**TT**: What?  
**EB**: you never even wished me a happy birthday!  
**EB**: um... hello?  
**TT**: I was working on something to send you, but I was running late with it.  
**TT**: I didn't want you to think I believed meager well wishes alone would suffice for the occasion.  
**TT**: That said, happy birthday, John.  
**EB**: haha, oh jeez, that is silly!  
**EB**: anyway, thanks!

'_FIRST, TAKE THE FABRIC ITEM ON THE FLOOR THERE.'_

John got up from his desk and looked at the towel lying on the floor behind him.

Why the towel?

Oh well, the "voice" was the boss. John captchalogued the towel. What now?

'_DO AS THE PURPLE TEXT SAYS. TO THE BALCONY.'_

John made his way to the balcony per the awkwardly worded request.

'_WAIT. TAKE THAT. THE BLUE WOBBLY THING.'_

He whimsically decided to captchalogue the totem which was used to create the apple tree earlier, and had remained in the Alchemiter until now.

'_JOHN. RECYCLE THE GRIST AS WAS DICTATED BY YOUR COHORT.'_

But John could not do anything with the grist at the moment! That was up to the SBURB player.

'_I SEE.'_

At the controls, Rose went and deleted the Perfectly Generic Objects, restoring 6 units of Build Grist to the Grist Cache.

She then expended the grist to drag a new plank from the balcony in the direction of the PDA on its lone cliff.

'_JOHN RUN ACROSS PRECARIOUS PLATFROM SWIFTLY.'_

But it was a long way down from there, and John wasn't sure that was the best idea.

'_BOY I SAID MAKE HASTE ON THE NARROW CATWALK!'_

He shook his head fiercely. He was still very nervous about the idea, and the strident tone of the commands were starting to make him a little upset!

'_FINE. PROCEED AS YOUR LEVEL OF COMFORT DICTATES.'_

John cautiously walked within range of the PDA along the plank, until Rose was able to retrieve it and place it on the floor beside him, as the Sprite watched eagerly.

'_NOW TAKE IT.'_

He grabbed the PDA, launching one of the harlequin figures out of his deck and into the night.

He could kiss that one goodbye.

Unlocking the device, John noticed that the SERIOUS BUSINESS app was open once again.

The following matters have been submitted in a frank and forthright manner for **pipefan413's** judicious appraisal.

_f_ **fedorafreak** – ?:?

ty all. report: most hats removed from danger. ties next.

_f_ **wellPressedAttire** – ?:?

fedorafreak, you are in our thoughts, along with pipefan413 and his enviable collection of pipes.

_f_ **officeurchin1280** – ?:?

gl fedorafreak. salvage as many hats as is practical.

_f_ **fedorafreak** – ?:?

neighboring house struck by flaming projectile. in light of fire hazard, evacuating house of all expensive garments.

_f_ **grayslacks66** – ?:?

pipefan413: status of health/wardrobe?

_f_ **wellPressedAttire** – ?:?

Submitting inquiry of concern over cataclysmic event.  
pipefan413 reply.

It looked like he wasn't the only one trying to locate his father after the disaster.


	13. Chapter 11

'_THESE BORING MEN ARE UNINTERESTING.'_

John closed the SERIOUS BUSINESS app and opened up Pesterchum.

**TT**: John, are you ok?  
**TT**: You seem a bit tentative.  
**EB**: i'm fine i guess.  
**EB**: since i got here i feel compelled to do these weird things i don't really want to do.  
**EB**: by some kind of voice that i can't really even hear. i don't know, it is hard to explain.  
**TT**: Perhaps the early symptoms of an anxiety disorder, like post-traumatic stress?  
**EB**: yeah, maybe. who knows!  
**TT**: Well, if you can pull yourself together, there are a few more things we should try.  
**TT**: Like prototyping the Kernelsprite again, if possible.  
**TT**: We should hurry. My laptop battery won't last forever.  
**EB**: Ok. I will go back inside.

_'NO DON'T DO THAT. HOP OFF THIS LEDGE ON TO THAT CAR.'_

John looked down at his dad's car below him.

"What? No! That sounds incredibly dangerous!" John replied to the voice that was probably in his imagination.

He shook his head violently in disapproval.

Now they were just being a pest. Which turnip truck did they just tumble out of anyway? Who was this?

* * *

Years in the future, but not many…

An unsealed tunnel welcomed hot desert air into its stagnant depths.

Light poured into the dark opening, which lead deep underground to a forgotten laboratory. But, it was forgotten no more.

The Wandering Vagabond entered cautiously, looking at his strange new surroundings.

Blinking through his rags, he approached a large series of four screens, set in some sort of metal backing that was designed to look like a house that the people of the past used to live in.

And on the top right screen, an image of a boy holding an apple standing outside his home, which had just been moved to a mysterious new location, was displayed.

A boy named John Egbert.

Reaching out his black hands to the keyboard beneath it, the Vagabond typed out the word "BOY" and hit enter.

'YOU THERE. BOY.'


	14. Chapter 12

.

* * *

[A000] An Examination of the Basics

* * *

Upon connecting with the client user, you, the server user, will be met with a control panel allowing you to manipulate your co-players environment. You will find that you are allowed to deploy four items at no expense. Three of these are rather large machines, and one is a pre-punch card.

It's quite possible that you have already deployed some of these items before reading this. If this is the case, and you have activated the machine called the "cruxtruder" such that it displays a countdown, YOU MUST PROCEED TO SECTION [A100] OF THIS WALKTHROUGH IMMEDIATELY. The life of your client user depends on it, and if your co-player has activated this device in your environment too, then yours does as well.

But if not, please refrain from doing anything with the cruxtruder, aside from merely deploying it. This will buy us some time to think things through properly, and to go over the basics of the game before you find your soft, easily-punctured head in the jaws of the lion.

As mentioned, there are four items to consider, each playing a role in a process that which appears to have a singular purpose: to manufacture objects out of thin air. The designers of the game, judging by the language used, regard this process as a sort of alchemy. This may allude to complexities in the production process yet to present themselves. But for now, the variety of objects you are able to create remains quite limited.

The items in question are the CRUXTRUDER (again, tread lightly with this one), the TOTEM LATHE, the ALCHEMITER, and the PRE-PUNCHED CARD. I will describe how these devices work in conjunction with each other, and I will use the analogy of having a key made at a hardware store to help you understand.

First, deploy all of these objects in convenient proximity to each other. Be sure not to block doors or pathways with them. You can always "revise" the dimensions of rooms to make space for them, but I'd advise against this, or even experimenting with the function. Doing so comes at the expense of "build grist," a commodity which appears to be at a premium at the onset, and one you'd be best advised to save for later.

- THE CRUXTRUDER –-

Removing the lid signals the moment your life becomes a great whirling batshit pandemonium, somewhat resembling the chaos of an especially ethnic wedding. Somewhere, a soused uncle deliberately shatters china on the floor. Muddy livestock is decorated, and then lost track of. The question is "Who's mule is this?" at times can be heard over the din. This is now your reality.

But aside from that, it marks the beginning of the process I am about to describe. The countdown begins, yes. Also, an entity called the "Kernelsprite" is released. But neither of these things are all that relevant to this process, to my knowledge. More on these things later.

What is relevant is the un-lidded cruxtruder's ability to dispense "cruxite dowels". It will dispense at least one, though I suspect it is capable of producing more, given parameters I'm not yet familiar with. In my key-making analogy, these dowels represent the uncarved pieces of metal which the hardware store employee retrieves from a drawer or a rack, and set about carving into a key. The two following items are needed to do the carving.

- THE PRE-PUNCHED CARD –-

It is a simple sylladex card containing an item. There is evidence to suggest the specific item it contains is variable from session-to-session. The card I deployed contained a blue apple. Yours may be different. It shouldn't matter, hopefully.

Additionally, the card as you may guess is "punched", like one used with antique computing systems. The pattern of holes comprises data, which I believe corresponds to the instructions for creating the item the card contains. That it is "pre-punched" suggests there is a way to punch an un-punched card, possibly imprinting it with the data for the item it contains, though no mechanism for this has presented itself yet.

But the data on the card cannot be used to create the item directly. There is a middleman. That middle man is the totem lathe.

- THE TOTEM LATHE –

This is essentially the key carving machine. It will carve into your cruxite dowel a pattern of grooves and contours, the sort which makes a key unique. The instructions for this pattern are supplied by the punch card, which is inserted into the lathe pre-activation to configure its chisels.

Once the dowel is carved, you have a totem serving as your "key", which can then be used to "unlock" the card item through the alchemiter. But at this point, I will diverge from my key-making analogy and switch to a bar code analogy. Which is not a terribly strenuous leap to make, since the concepts of a key and a bar code are essentially the same – one being a unique pattern of grooves; the other, of varying black lines.

- THE ALCHEMITER –-

If you place a cruxite dowel, carved or uncarved, on the alchemiter's small pedestal, its robotic arm will scan the contours with a laser. Hence the bar code analogy. This is the machine's way of reading the data originally imprinted from the card, and transforming that data into a physical object.

Though typically, this is not done without expense, I believe. An uncarved dowel results in the creation of a "perfectly generic object", which is a seemingly useless green cube. It costs two units of build grist to make, and I do not advise you to waste resources on it. There appears to be many other varieties of grist, ostensibly used in combinations to create different sorts of items, which possibly offers some insight into the game's use of the term "alchemy".

But quite conveniently, there is an exception to this. Creating the item on the pre-punched card costs nothing. This is good, because creating this item turns out to be essential.

Now that you know this, you can in your own time begin the process. Once you initiate it, naturally there is no going back, so best to be prepared. But you probably shouldn't drag your feet too long. As I mentioned earlier, this is your only means of escape.

When you're ready, be prepared to follow the steps in the next section swiftly.

* * *

[A100] So your cruxtruder is ticking. Do this to live.

* * *

.


	15. Chapter 13

Rose gazed out the window in the conservatory.

The rain was still coming down in sheets; and in the distance, meteors fell with greater frequency. The fire in the forest burned so hot, not even the rain was putting it out!

She raised an eyebrow and turned to check on the status of her laptop battery. It was alright for now, but wouldn't be for long.

If the power in the house didn't come back on, she could think of one last resort: the small backup generator stored behind the mausoleum.

Sitting down at the laptop, Rose once again began to manipulate John's environment. She clicked on the box of Betty Crocker cake mix that John's dad had left in the kitchen, with the intention of prototyping the Sprite with it.

**EB**: what? oh man, you're going to use that?  
**EB**: that sucks, what a stupid idea!  
**TT**: We have to hurry along. I'm running low on battery power.  
**EB**: but the cake mix... ugh, that's so dumb.  
**TT**: I doubt it matters.  
**TT**: We might as well just use any old crap lying around.  
**EB**: fine.  
**EB**: i GUESS.

She attempted to drop the cake mix onto the Sprite, but it jumped around and evaded the prototyping.

It was playing hard to get! Rose guessed that's what she got for originally prototyping it with something that engendered mischief and pranksterism.

'_DO THE POTTED VEGETABLE INSTEAD. IT LOOKS DELICIOUS.'_

"Pipe down, you!" John muttered to the voice. "This is Rose's decision not yours!"

Rose decided she would try the Sassacre text next, and picked it up with the cursor.

**EB**: OH YES, SWEET!  
**EB**: now we're talking!  
**TT**: See if you can distract it.  
**TT**: I'll try to sneak up on it.

'_JOHN FLAIL ABOUT IN A DISTRACTING MANNER.'_

John leapt in front of the Sprite and waved his arms around a bit and yelled at it.

The Sprite found the distracting manner in which he "flailed about" to be rather distracting, but not distracting enough it would seem. It noticed the book coming towards it at the last second and fled to the living room.

The pesky Sprite has eluded her once again! Not even the great Colonel himself could outfox it!

In narrowly missing with her attempt to create the Colonelsprite, Rose dropped the massive tome. The entire house rattled under the astonishing girth of the book.

In the other room, the urn atop the mantle fell over causing Nanna's ashes to dump onto the Sprite, which was caught unaware by the dousing as it floated by the fireplace.

As soon as the ashes came into contact with it, the Sprite began to glow and lit up the room.

* * *

'_INSPECT HAG ASH INCIDENT.'_

Seeing the light pour through from the living room and into the kitchen, John went out to see what had happened.

He found the sacred urn toppled again. But this time he was quite sure it wasn't his fault!

The Sprite was nowhere to be found.

**EB**: aw man, where'd it go?  
**TT**: I can't find it anywhere in the house.  
**TT**: No time to worry about it.  
**TT**: The next thing we should do is get your server copy of the game from the car.  
**TT**: You need to connect to my client, so I can repeat your steps and presumably join you, wherever you are.  
**TT**: We should do this quickly, before my house burns down.  
**EB**: what, there's a fire?  
**TT**: There will be soon.  
**EB**: oh jeez!  
**EB**: so move this thing already!

The Cruxtruder was still sitting in the way of the front door.

**TT**: It looks like it requires a lot of grist to move.  
**TT**: I don't have enough to relocate the door, either.  
**EB**: how much do you have?  
**TT**: Zero.  
**EB**: oh.  
**EB**: hmm.  
**EB**: i thought about jumping to the car from the ledge earlier but that sounds really dangerous!  
**TT**: I have a better idea.  
**TT**: Meet me upstairs.

'_DO AGAIN AS PURPLE WORDS SAY.'_

John was about to head upstairs, but he thought he heard something behind him.

It was faint, but he swore it was a small, lighthearted chuckle. Along the lines of a spirited "Hoo-hoo-hoo!"

As he looked around to find the source of the noise, the Sprite rose up out of the floor behind him. Now that it was newly prototyped, the Sprite had gained the face and ghostly body of John's Nanna while retaining the hat, scar and arm of the harlequin.

However, John failed to notice it as it continued to hide from him as he looked around.

'_IGNORE THIS WOMAN'S ANTICS.'_

Regardless of what the voice seemed to be saying, John wasn't sure he had even seen a woman, let alone any of her hypothetical antics. But whatever it was he might have caught a glimpse of, it sure gave him the willies.

He headed upstairs on his way to the balcony, but it seemed his PDA's pesterchum was acting up again.

'_INDULGE THE DEVICE. BUT BE CURT WITH IT.'_

**TG**: hey bro check it out im working on some new rhymes  
**EB**: dude, i don't have time for your nerdy raps!  
**TG**: come on this is hells of ill just listen  
**EB**: it sounds like you don't even believe me that i was about to get blown up!  
**EB**: but i really was, but now im in some weird dimension that sburb sent me to or something.  
**EB**: and now on top of that i think i'm being haunted by my dead grandma!  
**TG**: huh  
**TG**: for real  
**EB**: yeah, it's true but i'll talk to you later about it!  
**TG**: i think i could drop some sick rhymes about all this  
**EB**: man, see i just don't think all the rapping stuff is really as cool as you think it is.  
**TG**: no thisll be dope check it  
**EB**: no, i have to go! bye!  
**TG**: wait wait  
**TG**: armageddon's gettin waged on us  
**TG**: but im-a gettin armed and dangerous  
**TG**: sending men in space for savin us  
**TG**: see which playa's more couragerous  
**TG**: ben or bruce? dudes reach a truce  
**TG**: put their blowchutes to use and up-suck it  
**TG**: afflecks saclifice, i mean -crifice, would have to sufflice. aw fluck it  
**TG**: bro be a stained-glass saint, up on a cross gettin hella christ-plagiarous  
**TG**: bruce's like offa that cruciflix, nuff a this fuckin savior-fuss  
**TG**: restrained his ass per mclane-redux while buscemi remained derangerous  
**TG**: when a plan gone astray pays off a wasted craterous  
**TG**: ash tray caterin to layers of matt maconnaheys vague remainder-dust  
**TG**: wait  
**TG**: uh  
**TG**: macconahey wasnt even in any of those meteor movies was he  
**TG**: ill have to make a rap about  
**TG**: i dont know  
**TG**: morgan freeman or something  
**TG**: being the president  
**TG**: itll be called  
**TG**: "obama made it so that no one gives a shit about black presidents in movies anymore"  
**TG**: see youve got to fill me in on whats going on  
**TG**: so i have something to rap about besides all your dumbshit movies

'_ENOUGH STRANGE POETRY FROM THE RED TEXT.'_

John headed out to the balcony, to find out what Rose had in mind.

She was messaging him again.

'_THE PURPLE TEXT IS LESS IRRATIONAL THAN THE RED TEXT.'_

**TT**: I'm lifting the car up to the balcony.  
**EB**: whoa, ok.  
**TT**: Once it is up, retrieve the game. Then I'll put it back down on the driveway.  
**EB**: but the door is locked!  
**TT**: Then break a window.  
**EB**: but it's my dad's car :(  
**TT**: It's just a window, and this is sort of an emergency.  
**TT**: Otherwise I promise I'll handle the car with velvet gloves.  
**EB**: alright.

Rose clicked on the car and began to drag it up towards where John was standing. But, as she was doing so, she once again lost the connection and dropped the car.

It fell back down to the remnants of the driveway, but its impact caused the piece of ground to break off and John watched as the car plummeted down into the abyss below, taking the game with it.

'_RIDICULOUS FOLLY. INEXCUSABLE.'_

John was inclined to agree, but hey, accidents happened. He double checked his PDA to see if Rose was really gone. Indeed this seemed to be the case.

TG was still pestering him of course. But another chum was now logged in as well.

_'WHAT COLOR ARE THE WORDS THAT THIS CHUM SAYS?'_

**GG**: im back!  
**EB**: oh hi!  
**GG**: i went to investigate the explosion i heard  
**EB**: was it by any chance a meteor?  
**GG**: yes!  
**GG**: how did you know?  
**EB**: oh man, it's kind of a long story!  
**EB**: anyway, are you ok? did it blow up your yard or start a fire or anything?  
**GG**: no i am fine!  
**GG**: it landed a pretty good ways from my house and i went to look at it  
**GG**: and its pretty big!  
**GG**: but bec doesnt want me to go near it  
**GG**: so i came home  
**GG**: he seems to think its dangerous!  
**EB**: well gosh, he's probably right!  
**GG**: anyway what have you been up to john?  
**GG**: oh! did you get my package yet? :O  
**EB**: er...  
**EB**: yeah, i was trying to get it, but rose dropped my car into a weird spooky bottomless pit and the package was in the car and im really sorry about that.  
**GG**: oh no!  
**EB**: wow, ok, i guess i should start at the beginning.  
**EB**: see, a meteor blew up my neighborhood.  
**GG**: thats terrible john! im so sorry!  
**EB**: but i'm ok! and my house is too, sort of.  
**EB**: that game i was telling you about, sburb which i was playing with rose, sort of transported me somewhere at the last minute.  
**EB**: but now i'm trapped here and it's weird and dark and i can't find my dad and i just lost the car and my copy of the game in the pit and i think i have to save the world from the apocalypse!  
**GG**: O_O  
**GG**: well...  
**GG**: it sounds really crazy and kind of scary but...  
**GG**: it also sounds kind of exciting!  
**GG**: i dont know john maybe this is your destiny  
**GG**: if anyone can save the world i think it is probably you!  
**EB**: wow, you think so?  
**GG**: yes!  
**EB**: well ok, BUT.  
**EB**: it's not even that simple!  
**EB**: i was about to connect to rose to help transport her and save her from meteors and fire and stuff.  
**EB**: but she lost battery power and i lost the game disc!  
**EB**: so i think i have to get TG to use his copy to save her!  
**EB**: but that jackass won't shut up and stop rapping and stuff.  
**GG**: hahaha  
**GG**: he is so silly!  
**EB**: yeah. anyway i should talk to him about it, so brb.

'_THE GREEN TEXT WAS ATTRACTIVE. NOW VIEW THE RED TEXT AGAIN.'_

**TG**: when the film crew zooms where the presidents at  
**TG**: im like if that dudes black ill eat my hat  
**TG**: turns out he is, so we're all "damn, director's got gumption"  
**TG**: like we'll all flip our shit he aint shining shoes or somethin  
**TG**: its called freemancipation. if its not pres-election its god-ascension  
**TG**: in bruce almighty. whoops, different bruce from the one i just mentioned  
**EB**: aaaaaarrrgh!  
**TG**: cant explain to me why this aint condescension to think ill shit a brick  
**TG**: not even he can convey the intention with his quickspun wit  
**TG**: rather defray all this tension, sit on his lap while he whittles a splint  
**TG**: and some guy eyes what he does and patronizes: i guess negrocity's the mother of invention  
**EB**: stop rapping for a second you horse's ass!  
**EB**: i have something important to talk about.  
**TG**: whats up  
**EB**: rose is in trouble and she needs help. i was going to connect to her with sburb but i lost my copy!  
**TG**: ok  
**EB**: also she lost battery power. if she can get back up and running, she'll need someone with the game to get her out of there before her house burns down.  
**EB**: so i think you should use your copy of the game to help her!  
**TG**: my copy?  
**TG**: thats going to be tough  
**EB**: why?  
**TG**: i lost it  
**TG**: its a stupid story and id rather not talk about it  
**TG**: shit be embarrassing yo  
**EB**: i thought you said you had two?  
**TG**: well yeah  
**TG**: one is my brothers copy  
**EB**: ok, well get his then!  
**TG**: alright  
**TG**: but hes not gonna be happy about that  
**EB**: whatever.  
**EB**: also you might want to read rose's walkthrough to get up to speed on this.  
**TG**: oh man  
**EB**: what?  
**TG**: nothing really  
**TG**: look all im saying is the girl tends to lay it on kinda thick you know?  
**EB**: /ROLLS EYES


	16. Chapter 14

Rose's laptop was out of battery power. So there was only one thing left to do. It was time to make her way to that backup generator.

She thought about knitting a laptop cozy to shield her computer from the rain, but that would have been such a waste of time!

Besides, she already knitted a nice purple one a while ago. She retrieved it from her knitting bag and applied it to the laptop.

She captchalogued the laptop plus cozy.

Rose then considered equipping the grimoire to her strife specibus, but that would have been incredibly ill-advised!

There were some dark forces she just didn't want to mess around with. She understood this better than most, and put the book back down.

Next, she captchalogued the knitting bag and the grimoire, in that order. It was always a logistical puzzle with her tree modus.

The tree auto-balanced, leaving the knitting bag accessible in the root card.

Now she allocated her knitting needles to her strife specibus. She felt a lot more comfortable with this as a weapon. She was so handy with those needles, she felt like she could probably use them to filet a sword fish.

However, she lost the root card in the process, severing the tree and causing the remaining two items to eject. Luckily, Rose was quick on her feet and caught them before they hit the ground.

Another odd thought of knitting a plush cuddle-cthulhu to sooth her nerves entered Rose's mind, but that would have also been a preposterous waste of time!

Besides, she was quite sure she had never heard of this creature called "Cthulhu" before. There were, however, many other specimens of the zoologically dubious she was familiar with.

Such as Fluthlu, Foul Patrician of Misery. To hear his mammoth belly gurgle was to know the Epoch of Joy had come to an abrupt end.

And Nrub'yiglith, Shamebeast King of Grotesquery, Writhe-Lord of the Moist Beyondhood. Hearing his melodious chirps and tongue-clicks caused one's bones to explode.

And of course there was Oglogoth, The Deep One. Whenever he ground his teeth, all the children of a random galaxy somewhere would frown continuously for a nine thousand year span. He was the first and smallest of the Smaller Gods, appointed in servitude of a vile, unfathomable pantheon of Middling Gods which catered to the whims of the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors, an omniscient, omnipotent order of the elite few, forever cloaked in the darkness of the Furthest Ring.

And then there was this strange page in the grimoire that contained some rather mysterious notes on summoning procedures, with images of windows and electrical outlets. She had never been quite sure what these diagrams were getting at.

After re-captchaloguing everything the way she wanted it to appear in the tree, Rose headed downstairs.

She figured she had done enough dilly-dallying. Time to get a move on!

* * *

Finding herself once again on the exterior walkway in the rain, Rose looked up at the sky for a brief moment. When she looked up, her hand guarding her eyes from the rain, she saw a small part in the clouds and could see the array of meteors flying through the night sky in the distance.

She wondered if this rain would ever let up. It had driven since the month began, perhaps long enough to forget its purpose. It no longer even knew to assuage fire. Somewhere a zealous god threaded these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it feared impossible to play. And so it threaded on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton.

How she hated this season.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." – American sports legend, Charles Barkley.


	17. Chapter 15

In the hall, Rose thought that her mother must surely be lurking nearby. She prepared herself for an unpleasant confron –

OH PSYCHE.

What, you say?

Well, Rose's tale will have to wait because right now there's this really cool dude, ok? A cool dude with blond hair and a record on his shirt, who was standing around being all chill, like cool dudes were known to do sometimes.

A cool dude like this probably had a real cool name, but he probably wouldn't just tell you what it was if you asked. He was way too busy for that. Busy being totally sweet.

But we could try to guess his name. And if we were right, he might nod ever so slightly. That was a cool dude's way of letting you know there might just be hope for you yet.

Let's try, Insufferable Pri-

He wielded his katana in a threatening manner.

This guy didn't have time for this kind of bullshit. Try again.

Dave Strider?

Yes, that was it. The sunglasses he was wearing gleamed in approval.

His name was Dave, and it was an unseasonably warm April day. His bedroom window was open to let some air in, and his fan was cranked. Arguably even more cranked would be his fly beats, which brought up the topic of his varying interests. A cool dude like him was sure to have plenty.

He had a penchant for spinning out unbelievably ill jams with his turntables and mixing gear. He liked to rave about bands no one had ever heard of but himself. He collected weird dead things preserved in various ways that he kept on a shelf on his wall. He was also an amateur photographer and operated his own makeshift darkroom. He even had some of his printed photos hanging up on a line that was strung from one side of the room to the other.

Dave maintained a number of ironically humorous blogs, websites, and social networking profiles as well. And if the inspiration struck, he wouldn't hesitate to drop some phat rhymes on a mofo and represent.

He thought about quickly retrieving his arms from the cinderblocks, but then thought '_Nah.'_

Instead he looked over at his copies of SBURB beta that he had received in the mail recently. He'd labeled them with his name in bold red print to distinguish them from his bro's copies, who labeled his in kind.

Neither of them really gave a shit about this game or had any intention of playing it, but he'd be damned if he'd let that get in the way of his campaign of one-upmanship.

Dave walked over to his closet. This was where he kept a lot of his crap, like an opened blue box and a bottle of…what was that? Was that…?

He peered into the box. This was the package that his friend John Egbert sent him for his 13th birthday a little while ago. It now contained nothing except a note and a certificate of authenticity vouching for the genuine Hollywood memorabilia which the box originally contained, and which Dave was now wearing to be ironic but also to be incredibly cool in a way somehow intangibly related to the ironic nature of the accessory. He found it sort of exasperating to explain these subtleties to people.

The box also included a signed photo of Ben Stiller which now proudly hung above his closest; proudly and ironically.

Dave captchalogued the box through his hash map fetch modus.

His modus's current hash function resolved the index by valuing each consonant at 2, and each vowel at 1. The total was divided by his number of cards, and the remainder was the index.

BOX = 2 + 1 +2 = 5

5 % 10 = 5

The box was captchalogued in card 5.

Dave then turned his attention to the jar filled with an unknown yellow substance in the closet.

Oh hell yes. It was an unopened container of apple juice. He had thought he was all out. It was like fucking Christmas up in here.

This was so great, he had to tell John about this immediately. He would be so excited.

He captchalogued the juice into card 7.

2+1+1+2+1 % 10 = 7

He went and sat down at his computer to access Pesterchum and pester John.

In addition to letting his buddy know about this outstanding juice windfall, he figured he'd wish him a happy birthday while he was at it. In his own cool, sort of roundabout way of course. Good thing he'd looked at that box John sent him, or he might have forgotten.

He also decided he might as well ask him about that beta. The kid had been harping about it for weeks. It would have been be cool if it came on his birthday. He'd be one happy camper.

- turntechGodhead** [TG]** began pestering ectoBiologist **[EB]** at 18:13 -

**TG**: hey so what sort of insane loot did you rake in today  
**EB**: i got a little monsters poster, it's so awesome. i'm going to watch it again today, the applejuice scene was so funny.  
**TG**: oh hell that is such a coincidence i just found an unopened container of apple juice in my closet it is like fucking christmas up in here  
**EB**: ok thats fine, but i just have one question and then a word of caution. have you ever seen a movie called little monsters starring howie mandel and fred savage?  
**TG**: but  
**TG**: the seal on the bottle is unbroken  
**TG**: are you suggesting someone put piss in my apple juice at the factory  
**EB**: all im saying is don't you think monster howie mandel has the power to do something as simple as reseal a bottle?  
**EB**: try using your brain numbnuts.  
**TG**: why did the fat kid or whoever drank it know what piss tasted like  
**TG**: i mean his reaction was nigh instantaneous  
**EB**: it was the 15th day in a row howie mandel peed in his juice.  
**TG**: ok i can accept that  
**TG**: monster B-list celebrity douchebags are cunning and persistent pranksters  
**TG**: also fred savage has a really punchable face  
**TG**: but who cares about this lets stop talking about it  
**TG**: did you get the beta yet  
**EB**: no.  
**EB**: did you?  
**TG**: man i got two copies already  
**TG**: but i dont care im not going to play it or anything the game sounds boring  
**TG**: did you see how it got slammed in game bro?  
**EB**: game bro is a joke and we both know it.  
**TG**: yeah  
**TG**: why dont you go check your mail maybe its there now  
**EB**: alright.

After closing Pesterchum, Dave opened the Hephaestus web browser and directed it to his ironically maintained blog where he posted monthly satirical reviews of Gamebro Magazine. His latest post was a review of the March issue.

He had been meaning to write a review for the latest issue too, but he had been sort of dogging it. Something about the game they were reviewing just didn't strike him as ripe for satirical purposes.

In a new tab, Dave opened another one of his sites, a webcomic ironically maintained through a satirical cipher vaguely similar to that of his blog. It was called "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. "

He had legions of devoted fans, most of whom were totally convinced of his creative persona's sincerity. Which was just how he liked it.

The computer beeped; it looked like someone was pestering him, and he was pretty sure he knew who it was.

**TT**: In some cultures the persistent refusal of a lady's invitation to play a game with her would be a sign wanton disrespect.  
**TT**: Either that, or flagrant homosexuality.  
**TG**: what oh no  
**TG**: no look  
**TG**: im busy ok  
**TG**: ive got a lot of shit on my plate  
**TG**: i am sort of a big deal ok?  
**TT**: I know.  
**TT**: Sometimes I wonder how you are ever allowed to pay for meals in restaurants.  
**TT**: It must be hard to keep a low profile when you're always overhearing awed voices whisper, "It's that guy who has a blog."  
**TG**: seriously  
**TG**: dudes be worshipping me left and right  
**TG**: i cant hardly walk down the street without stepping over torsos of the prostrate  
**TT**: Navigating the urban landscape I'm sure is difficult enough without an obstacle course of deferential flesh and skyward asses.  
**TT**: Perhaps adapting the art of parkour to your unique environment would help?  
**TG**: yeah!  
**TG**: i mean damn  
**TG**: like theres this scruffy little shit at my feet  
**TG**: an orphan or something i dont know  
**TG**: face flush on the pavement  
**TG**: im like dude you listening for a stampede of buffalo or something?  
**TG**: he braves a look at me then gives my shoe a little kiss and scurries the fuck off  
**TT**: Heavy is the crown.  
**TG**: yeah  
**TG**: not kicking oliver twist in the fucking face every day is my gift to the world i guess  
**TT**: Breathtaking magnanimity!  
**TG**: among other things  
**TG**: i just give and fucking give  
**TT**: Indeed, nary a jewel tumbles from your wishbox of daily exploits which I imagine does not sparkle.  
**TG**: oh for fucks sake  
**TG**: youre just lobbying for me to play that dumb game  
**TT**: Baseless accusation!  
**TG**: look i am telling you  
**TG**: egbert is ALL ABOUT that game  
**TG**: he will play it with you and probably be tickled retarded about it  
**TT**: I know this very well.  
**TT**: I cannot hasten his mail's delivery, however.  
**TG**: yeah yeah  
**TG**: ill hassle him some more about it  
**TG**: and look how about this  
**TG**: if you ever find yourself in the position where your life depends on me playing that piece of shit game, then ill play  
**TG**: will that make you happy  
**TT**: More than you know.  
**TT**: It perfectly mollifies my grief over the demise of chivalry.

* * *

Meanwhile in the present, in a place where the present may be a concept of dubious merit, John was spacing out.

'_JOHN WHAT ARE YOU DOING. STOP DOING NOTHING.'_

But a vague and forceful thought jolted him to attention.

Or maybe it was the bumping sound coming from the other side of the door to the balcony, where he was currently standing. What was that?

A thick, black, unpleasant fluid pooled from beneath the door.

'_TROUBLING. INVESTIGATE THIS.'_

John opened the door cautiously and entered the house.

There was a trail of the fluid in the hall leading to his room.

* * *

Dave had had enough of the computer for a while. He felt like he'd been messing around on it all week. It was time to get his jam on.

He pulled up to his trusty AKAI MPC-1000 Sampler and prepared to get sicknasty.

For the next couple minutes, he played some hauntingly sick beats. Those beats were so fresh they belonged in the produce aisle, is what I'm talking about. Soccer moms be thumpin' that shit for ripeness like melons. Know what I'm sayin'?

After beats that fresh, it would have been a crime not to reward himself with a celebratory SWIG.

2+2+1+2 % 10 = 7.

Dave held the bottle of apple juice to his lips and prepared to take his swig, but he couldn't do it! John had him all twisted up inside now. All he could think about was Mandel's gross monster piss.

Damn you, Egbert!

He re-captchalogued the juice.

Then he decided to allocate his sword to his strife specibus; but it had already been allocated with the bladekind abstratus, so there was no need to allocate it again.

He could wield his sweet ninja sword as a weapon once it was in his strife deck; but he would have to captchalogue it first before he moved it there.

The NINJA SWORD (2+1+2+2+1 + 2+2+1+2+2 = 17 % 10 = 7) occupied the same card as the JUICE (2+1+1+2+1 = 7 % 10 = 7), and expelled the juice from his sylladex. It splashed all over his turntables and copies of the beta.

"Argh!" Dave groaned.

He headed out of his room to get a towel from the bathroom across the hall.

Hanging from the ceiling was one of many puppets in his bro's radical collection. Dave glanced at it and nodded in approval.

Was there anything not awesome about his bro? No, he thought not.

He entered the bathroom, and saw that there was a damp towel on the floor he could probably use for this crisis.

He also made sure to stop and pay a little respect to one of his bro's boys hanging up there in the shower.

"Hey lil' man. How's it hangin'?" Dave inquired of the puppet.

No response.

He took the DAMP TOWEL (2+1+2+2 + 2+1+2+1+2 = 15 % 10 = 5), which expelled the BOX (2+1+2 = 5 % 10 = 5), knocking him on the head.

The towel was actually pretty wet, and Dave thought about searching the bathroom for something slightly less damp, but decided he would just wring it out into the toilet instead.

It was now just a TOWEL (2+1+2+1+2 = 8 % 10 = 8).

He took the towel, and grabbed the box again while he was at it, placing them in his sylladex.

Returning to his room, Dave cleaned up the juice with the towel and hung the damp beta envelopes on his line to dry off.

In the breeze of the fan, the beta jostled near the open window.

This arrangement was a little disconcerting. If they fell out, it sure would be a stupid way to lose them.

As a precautionary measure, he turned off the fan. The crisis was easily averted. He couldn't imagine it would ever resurface later in any way, shape, or form. That beta was as good as his, forever.

* * *

Dave wondered if Egbert had found the beta yet. He should probably go pester him again. He also might chat about their respective sylladices and fetch modi, if the topic happened to come up. Dave wondered if John was anywhere near as smooth with his sylladex as he was. Probably not. It was probably not even humanly possi…

Suddenly a rambunctious crow flew in the open window and snatched the beta, possibly to make a nest with, or maybe just for the sake of being a brainless feathery asshole.

Dave yelled at the bird. "STOP!"

2 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 7.

He accidentally launched his ninja sword right into the crow, and everything went flying out the window, dead bird and all.

He covered his mouth in alarm. No one could ever know about this.

Leaning out the window, Dave looked to see where everything had gone.

Yeah, he could kiss all that stuff goodbye. He felt sorry for the bird, but at least he never planned on ever using that beta, ever.

Anyway, now that that bit of ugliness was behind him, he guessed he could look forward to several more hours of messing around in his room.


	18. Chapter 16

**A/N:** As per usual, no greater than/less than signs. So 'x3' is a heart, and + and - are used for the tree modus! But enough of my babblery, you should know this by now.

* * *

Rose prepared to descend the stairs to her living room. She was standing eye-to-eye with a familiar foe, a 20-foot tall granite statue of the mighty wizard, Zazzerpan the Learned. Her mother had had him installed through a hole in the roof with a heavy-duty crane.

Just looking at that mystical gaze; just peering into those aloof, glassen eyes was to arrest the curiosity of any mortal. To behold the wisdom concealed in the furrows of that venerable foe was to know the ceaseless joys of bewonderment itself. Any man so fortunate as to catch askance his merry twinkle or twitch of whisker should surely have all his dreams fulfilled.

Rose found this grisly abomination detestable.

As she descended down the steps, she was faced with more wizard decorations scattered about the first floor.

Rose scowled. Her mother clearly had no affinity for these damnable things. She only collected them to spite her.

If anything, she found them more repellent than Rose did. She was just a committed woman.

Moving on, she stepped down from the stairs and into the living room area of her home's expansive open layout.

There was the sound of rushing water beneath the floor. It tended to strike guests as a strange presence in a living space, but it had become hardly audible to her through familiarity.

The front door was not far from where she stood, but hopefully there was no need to make the long trek around the house in the rain. She figured she might as well see if she could slip through the kitchen and out the back unnoticed.

Next to the stairs where Rose was, stood her mother's solid bronze vacuum. But it wasn't always bronze. A while ago, Rose gave the vacuum as an ironic gift to her mom for mother's day. She even had it customized with a drink holder to support one of her ubiquitous alcoholic beverages.

Mom "liked" the gift so much, she had it bronzed and put on this pedestal. She even left it plugged so it could still be turned on now and then. But never to do any cleaning. It never left the display.

Sometimes at night, when she was in her room, Rose could hear it wailing from downstairs. Mom _must_ have known she could hear it. She was completely deranged.

Over on one of the couches in the sitting area, was a rather large doll, or the Eldritch Princess, as Rose had dubbed it due to its lovely squid-like head and tentacles. She went to go grab it, but it was too big to captchalogue.

Not that she had wanted to move it anyway. The Pretty Princess Doll had been sitting there for months, ever since her mother had gotten this abomination for her birthday as a totally passive-aggressive gesture.

Rose had decided to make it much less abominable by knitting Her Majesty a new head and new arms. Now it brought a mischievous smile to her face whenever she walked by. Her mother hadn't removed the doll yet, and probably never would. She was never the one to blink first.

Next to the doll on the couch was an umbrella. Rose took it to protect her from the elements once she exited the house.

U+ L. U- V. The tree modus placed the umbrella at the bottom of her deck.

She was going to have one hell of a time accessing that card when she needed it. But she guessed she would cross that bridge later.

Peeking inside the kitchen behind the sitting area, Rose saw that the liquor bottles were out in full force. Mom was surely nearby.

She looked over at the refrigerator, whose surfaces had customarily served as the battlefield for a chilly siege of passive-aggressive one-upmanship.

The top portion of it was taken up by a drawing Rose had done of her cat Jaspers when she was younger, along with a poem about him. Her mother had bought an ostentatious $15,000 frame for it and had it welded to the door.

Beneath that were the colorful magnet letters, which Rose had recently used to leave a succinct message, "shrew," which may or may not have been directed to anyone in particular. But she couldn't find the letter W, so she had just stuck two V's together.

Her mother had then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for her convenience.

Appreciative of the thoughtful gesture, Rose had left her a sincere thank you note, which she had legally notarized, and then marked with a drop of blood. But part of it was touching the floor, so her mother had been kind enough to lift the lower portion of the document with a velvet pillow.

Rose went and took one of the W's and held it up to her face like a fake mustache.

This was incredibly silly, and she wasn't sure how it fit into her campaign against her mother, or getting her computer back online to escape her doom. But it was hard to resist getting a little silly sometimes; especially when she was absolutely sure no one was watching.

She captchalogued the W.

W+ L. W+ V.

But that unsightly void in the W pack would not do, nor would the gash in the plastic. Rose deposited 12 cents in its place, which was her approximation of the letter's value. She also made a vow to return later and neatly sew the plastic shut.

She now wondered how to address the pillow situation. It seemed the woman had her at a clear disadvantage.

Perhaps slipping a fresh doily under the pillow would do the trick? Or maybe spilling a bit of Worcestershire sauce on it, and then having it dry-cleaned and returned along with a laboriously ingratiating apology note? No, there was no time for anything like that. Or maybe (just thinking out loud here) she could use the entire pack of W's as M's? Oh yes, that would burn.

But she had already done something with that W pack and there was no need to go back and gild that lily. This was delicate business. And that pillow was screaming for rebuttal.

Rose decided to take the velvet pillow and lovingly embroider a poem in praise of motherhood on it. Hopefully she could pull this off before she noticed it was gone.

Ve+ L. Ve- Vi. Ve+ U.

But it caused the tree to be pretty badly unbalanced. It surely would auto-balance itself in a moment.

Which it did. And just like that, the umbrella became accessible in the root card. That was one of the things she loved about the tree modus, the happy surprises.

Ok, well enough was enough. It was time for her to head out the back door. But right as she was about to leave, her mother came in as she went about cleaning in the dark.

"Augh!" Rose exclaimed as quietly as possible as she quickly hid behind the refrigerator.

She didn't know how her mother did that. She was never safe in this home.

And of all things to be doing during a power outage. She was up to her ironic housewife routine again. That mop bucket didn't even have any water in it! What an absolute madwoman.

Darting out from the refrigerator, Rose did a youth roll over the counters and into the sitting room. Unfortunately though, she landed on the coffee table, knocking over the multiple wizard statues that had been on display there.

'_Lousy goddamn stupid wizards.' _She thought to herself.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the past again, Dave was almost done patching up the hole in his window with gaffer tape.

But it was sort of hard getting any work done when people kept pestering him all day. He guessed he had better go check on his beeping computer.

- gardenGnostic **[GG]** began pestering turntechGodhead **[TG]** at 18:36 -

**GG**: hi dave!  
**TG**: hey sup  
**GG**: not much sup with you!  
**GG**: bro! hehehe  
**TG**: haha  
**TG**: good one  
**TG**: s'alright being chill i guess you know how it goes  
**GG**: great! feeling cool today?  
**GG**: mr cool guy?  
**TG**: oh man you know it  
**GG**: sooooo cooooooool!  
**TG**: you know shit is ice cold up in here  
**TG**: shit is wicked bananas i am telling you  
**GG**: :D  
**GG**: so have you talked to john today?  
**TG**: yeah we were just talking a while ago about how he sucks at his sylladex  
**TG**: can you believe he uses stack that kid is ridiculous  
**GG**: lol  
**GG**: well that doesnt sound like much fun!  
**TG**: what was it you use again...  
**TG**: wait nm  
**TG**: i forgot whenever we talk about your goofy modusses i get a migrane. what do you want with john  
**GG**: :)  
**GG**: i want to tell him happy birthday and ask him about his birthday package!  
**TG**: oh yeah  
**TG**: i was being sort of cagey and told him to check the mail cause i was wondering if mine came yet  
**GG**: i think it did!  
**TG**: yeah?  
**GG**: and i think mine came too  
**TG**: so uh  
**TG**: i guess you want to know if he likes it or something?  
**GG**: no!  
**GG**: he will not open it  
**GG**: he will lose it!  
**TG**: oh  
**TG**: uh  
**TG**: wow sorry to hear that i guess?  
**GG**: no its good actually!  
**GG**: because he will find it again later when he really needs it  
**GG**: which of course is why i sent it in the first place!  
**TG**: see like  
**TG**: i never get how you know these things  
**GG**: i dont know  
**GG**: i just know that i know!  
**TG**: hmm alright  
**GG**: anyway i have to go!  
**GG**: i have to feed bec which is always a bit of an undertaking  
**TG**: man  
**TG**: if i were you i would just take that fucking devilbeast out behind the woodshed and blow its head off  
**GG**: heheheh!  
**GG**: i dont think i could if i tried!  
**TG**: yeah  
**TG**: say hi to your grand dad for me too ok  
**GG**: ._.  
**GG**: yes i guess an encounter with him is almost certain  
**GG**: it is usually...  
**GG**: intense!  
**TG**: well yeah isnt it always with family  
**TG**: but he sounds like a total badass  
**GG**: yeah he totally is!  
**GG**: anyway gotta go!  
**TG**: see ya  
**GG**: x3

Dave thought it would be handy to have his PHONE (2+2+1+2+1 = 8%10 = 8) on so he wouldn't always have to go back to his computer whenever someone pestered him, so he went and got it from where he had left it by his turntables. This way he could TEXT MESSAGE (2+1+2+2 + 2+1+2+2+1+2+1 = 18%10 = 8) people no matter where he was or what outrageously cool thing he was up to.

He captchalogued the phone onto card 8, expelling the towel out onto his head.

SO. COOL.

* * *

And even meanerwhile, in the present (sort of,) John had followed the oil slicks into his bedroom. But once again, the slippery antagonist had eluded him. He only found more of the unpleasant oily smears inside.

Now someone was pestering him, and both his PDA and computer had registered the message.

**TG**: alright  
**TG**: im out of my room now looking for my bros game  
**EB**: oh, good!  
**EB**: yeah, there is no sign of rose yet, i hope she is ok  
**TG**: well if she comes back ill be ready  
**TG**: you better know what youre talking about cause this could get ugly  
**TG**: brought my phone and i also took my awesome katana with me in case things get too hot to handle  
**TG**: and they always do  
**EB**: you mean that cheap piece of shit you have on your wall?  
**TG**: FU  
**TG**: its sharp and its awesome and its a sword  
**TG**: end of story  
**EB**: ok i don't really care.  
**EB**: i'm in my room again, i really think there's someone else in this house.  
**EB**: like monsters or something.  
**TG**: howie?  
**EB**: haha I WISH.  
**TG**: dude monsters arent real  
**TG**: thats stupid kids stuff for stupid babies  
**EB**: maybe. yeah you're right.  
**TG**: what are you an idiot  
**TG**: of course there are monsters in your house  
**TG**: youre in some weird evil monster dimension come on  
**TG**: skepticism is the crutch of cinematic troglodytes  
**TG**: like hey mom dad theres a dinosaur or a ghost or whatever in my room. "yeah right junior go back to bed"  
**TG**: fuck you mom and dad how many times are we going to watch this trope unfold it wasnt goddamn funny the first time i saw it  
**TG**: just once id like to see dad crap his pants when a kid says theres a vampire in his closet  
**TG**: "OH SHIT EVERYONE IN THE MINIVAN"  
**TG**: be fuckin dad of the year right there  
**EB**: ok ok stop!  
**EB**: what do i do?  
**TG**: what do you have a hammer  
**TG**: man so lame  
**TG**: ok whatever  
**TG**: you should look into weaponizing your sylladex  
**TG**: my bro is always getting on my case about it but man its not as easy as it sounds  
**TG**: but if youre fighting monsters left and right you dont have much choice  
**EB**: hmm...  
**EB**: ok, i guess i can read up on data structures some more.  
**EB**: how's it going there?  
**TG**: im out in the living room hes usually here  
**TG**: but i dont see him  
**TG**: might be playing his mind games hes always pulling this ninja shit  
**TG**: all i see is lil cal over there so i guess he cant be far  
**EB**: hahaha.  
**EB**: oh god.  
**EB**: SO LAME.  
**TG**: what  
**EB**: see...  
**EB**: i just don't know why you think it's cool.  
**EB**: his ventriloquist rapping thing.  
**TG**: oh lil cal? no man  
**TG**: lil cal is the shit  
**EB**: that's fine, you are entitled to your opinion, i am just saying that being a white guy who is a rapper with a ventriloquist doll is not cool by any stretch of the imagination or by any definition of word cool, ironic or otherwise. that's all i'm saying.  
**TG**: yeah bullshit  
**TG**: cal is dope  
**TG**: puppets are awesome  
**TG**: john egbert blows  
**TG**: the end  
**EB**: yeah, more like the opposite of all those things is the thing that is true!  
**EB**: i'm going to read.  
**EB**: good luck with your bro.

_'READ YOUR BOOK. STAY WARY OF THESE FOES.'_

Pff, monsters. Only retarded babies who pooped in their diapers believed in that stuff.

* * *

Rose was about to do another youth roll out the front door, but her mother appeared, blocking her path. This left her with only one option…

STRIFE!

Rose readied her knitting needles to fend off her mother. She whacked her a few times, but it seemed ineffective. So, she resorted to the method of passively aggressing by performing an empty suicide threat and thrust her needles into the powerless electric outlet nearby.

However, her mother just responded with an ironic indulgence and presented Rose with a beautiful pony. Rose abjured the meddlesome creature. Mom then used her tactic of ironic negligence and offered Rose some of her martini, which Rose was prepared for and pulled out a bottle of Perrier in defense.

After this episode, it looked like Mom had satisfied her STRIFE! quota for the day, and simply returned to her housework, dusting the massive statue.

There was no point for Rose to go out the front door anymore, so she figured she might as well go out the back like she had originally planned.

Before leaving, she looked at the pony that now stood by the stairs. Rose gave it a begrudging pat on the snout. Her name was Maplehoof.

* * *

_'JOHN TURN AROUND!'_

_** Data Structures for Assholes  
Chapter 7 – God Damn It, Why Do I Even Bother**_

_ The good news: finally your revolting incompetence can be put to use. Instead of accidentally firing a sylladex full of steak knives into a priceless oil painting or your beloved great aunt, you can turn that fumbling fury toward one of your foes, such as the ability to grasp painfully simple concepts. The bad news: I'm tired of explaining myself hoarse to you jabbering fuckwads. In this chapter I will be phoning it in with the liberal use of diagrams and shitty clipart. What are you going to do about it? You are going to wriggle in your own viscous secretions like the worms you are. That's what._

_**Asshole Notes!**_

_Purse your lips together to form a stiff pucker. Apply them firmly to my rear end. I now pronounce you man and wife. Now get in the kitchen and make my ass some dinner, bitch._

John was trying to read, and this book was already unpleasant enough as it was without weird voices in his head nagging him to do things.

Besides, I thought we already agreed that there was no such thing as monsters.

But whatever, he decided he would listen to the voice and interrupt his reading so he could turn around, but he didn't see what could possibly be so oh my god it was a monster.

A strange black creature with narrow eyes and sharp black teeth dressed as a jester leapt at John and growled at him.

STRIFE!

The shale imp, as it was, brandished his stuffed bunny and threatened to bring harm to it. But John readied his sledgehammer and prepared to fight it off.

"Put the bunny back in the box!" He shouted at it.

Raising his hammer above his head, John sought to strike the imp, however it still proved to be too heavy for him to wield and he fell back and hit his head, dropping the hammer on the floor.


	19. Chapter 17

Rose left through the back door.

Nearby was the transformer which distributed electricity from the underground generator powered by the river flowing beneath her house.

The transformer had been struck by lightning though and no longer worked. She wondered if her mother had any plans to have it fixed. Rose guessed she'd rather just play her mind games in a dark house like a weirdo.

Rose looked across the back yard and she could see the mausoleum and the portable generator. She was almost there.

She got out her umbrella to protect her from the rain, but this caused all of her other items to be dumped onto the ground.

Regathering her things, she began the soggy trek mausoleum-ward.

* * *

'_GET UP JOHN, THIS IS NO TIME FOR SLUMBER.'_

John opened his eyes. He had been knocked out for a couple seconds.

The imp still stood before him, clutching the bunny in its claws.

The hammer head had fallen off when John had dropped it, so he picked up the handle and whacked the imp with it a few times. It seemed to be having an effect, as the imp yelped in pain.

However, it retaliated by shoving the bunny in John's face, knocking him off his feet.

"Argh!" he yelled in frustration.

* * *

As she walked through the yard, fighting the rain, Rose realized that she had forgotten the magnetic W back at the door, as it had stuck onto the transformer when it was dumped by her sylladex.

But it was just a stupid magnet, so she decided to just forget about it and continue on.

The sky poured forth sparks from the meteor storm, and the forest fire crept ever closer to her backyard, but Rose pressed on. It was not much farther now.

* * *

'_JOHN, SALVAGE YOUR WEAPON AND FIGHT ON!'_

STRIFE AGAIN!

John picked up the discarded hammer head and added it to his sylladex, which caused a fanciful harlequin to be ejected and hit the imp in the face.

Perhaps there was something to all this!

After bouncing off the imp, the harlequin figure landed on the floor and broke in two. John picked it back up, and his sylladex fired the hammer handle at the imp.

Picking that up again, ejected the towel. That one didn't really seem to help any.

And so, John continued to pick up and subsequently fire items out of his sylladex in an effort to defeat the shale imp.

Finally, after being hit with the PDA, the imp reached the end of its health supply and burst into an array of blue and purple grist.

John went about collecting them with gleeful abandon. It appeared to be some Build Grist and Shale.

Next, he turned his attention to the stuffed bunny which had been dropped by the imp before it exploded. John picked it up.

"I said…put the bunny…back in…the box!" He yelled as he raised the bunny to put it back in the box. But, he was so overcome with passion that he missed and ended up throwing it on the floor instead.

'_NOW EXULT. VICTORY, SPOILS ARE YOURS.'_

The amazing victory allowed John to scale the first two Achievement Rungs on his Echeladder. He was now a Plucky Tot, with a new feather in his cap to show for it.

The Echeladder rewarded his bold ascent with 125 Boondollars. John wasted little time in storing them in his Ceramic Porkhollow.

Additionally, climbing the rungs had boosted his Gel Viscosity and Cache Limit.

By expanding the Cache Limit, he had made room for all that nice grist he just collected. He now had 32 fragments of Build Grist and 10 fragments of Shale.

'_WHAT ABOUT THAT CARD.'_

It seemed that the shale imp had allocated the bunny to its strife specibus, leaving behind a card for the bunnykind abstratus.

Sort of a stupid thing to use as a weapon, but John figured he might as well grab it and stick the bunny in his strife deck while he was at it. It would at the very least be safer there.

He grouped the two specibi, handlekind and bunnykind, in his strife portfolio.

No self-respecting strifer would be caught dead without one.

Oddly enough, it seemed breaking the sledgehammer had altered the abstratus from hammerkind to handlekind, even going so far as expelling the head of his smaller hammer from his deck to force compliance. John hadn't even noticed in the heat of the battle.

He grabbed the sledgehammer handle, expelling the useless harlequin figurine.

Then he merged the sledgehammer head with its handle, and returned it to his strife deck, repairing the hammerkind abstratus in the process.

The smaller hammer handle was ejected from the deck, since of course handles of any sort no longer belonged in there. Obviously.

'_FINE. NOW WHAT.'_

Dave was pestering him, but John didn't have time to deal with his nonsense right now.

Something was amiss in his room, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it…

* * *

Once she arrived at the mausoleum, Rose fired up the generator and drug a cord inside with her.

It of course would have been foolish to run the generator inside a confined space. Generator safety was everyone's business.

Rose then jumped and kicked the small coffin off of the pedestal in the center of the small mausoleum where it had been.

"Sorry Jaspers. Have to make room for the laptop." She said to her dearly departed cat.

Besides, his final resting place was already a mockery. He should have decomposed years ago under a bed of petunias like a normal cat. Not given to a taxidermist and fitted with a tiny, custom-tailored suit, and then stuffed in a coffin built for infants.

Rose plugged in her laptop and connected to the internet signal again.

Everything predictably fell out of her sylladex, but she was not about to get bent out of shape about it. She had bigger fish to fry.

On her screen, it looked like Dave had noticed she was back online. He pestered her like clockwork.

And then there was John, standing in his room. What on earth was he up to now?


	20. Chapter 18

'_THE DOOR, JOHN. LOOK AT THE DOOR.'_

John stood in front of the door of his bedroom. Wait a minute.

_'Didn't Rose yank the door off its hinges and prop it on my bed?' _John pondered to himself.

Someone or something had put it back and left it slightly ajar.

He tried opening the door, and was surprised by a bucket of water falling onto his head as he did so.

The cackling of an old woman could be heard in the distance. "Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!"

Behind him, the Kernelsprite appeared, the Kernelsprite that had been prototyped with Nanna's ashes.

_'WHAT THIS IS SO OUTRAGEOUS.'_

* * *

Rose could see the entire spectacle playing out on her screen. It was all rather interesting.

Her Pesterchum client blinked at her though, and she figured it was about time she answered Dave.

**TG**: oh there you are  
**TG**: john said your house was burning down are you on fire yet or what  
**TT**: No. For now I have retired to the safety of a smaller building which is much closer to the forest fire threatening my residence.  
**TG**: oh well thats a relief  
**TG**: john told me to get the game to help get you out of there so im working on that now  
**TT**: Working on it?  
**TG**: yeah my bros copy long story  
**TG**: hey  
**TG**: dont tell john this but i think he might have been right about the puppets  
**TG**: theyre sort of starting to freak me out a little  
**TT**: You're referring to your brother's collection?  
**TG**: i mean dont get me wrong i think its cool and all  
**TG**: the semi-ironic puppet thing or whatever  
**TG**: or semi-semi ironic  
**TG**: man i dont even know  
**TG**: im just starting to think some of this shit is going a little far and its kind of fucked up  
**TT**: I've seen his websites.  
**TT**: I like them.  
**TG**: haha yeah well YOU WOULD  
**TG**: oh man i wish lil cal wouldnt look at me like that  
**TG**: with those dead eyes jesus  
**TG**: sometimes i dream that hes real and hes talking to me and i wake up in a cold sweat and basically flip the fuck out  
**TT**: Interesting...  
**TG**: oh god why did i just tell you my dream  
**TG**: youre going to have a field day with that  
**TT**: I am currently scrawling notes furiously into one of the many psychoanalysis journals I maintain for you. Published papers forthcoming.  
**TT**: Because, you know, it's not like either of us have anything better to do at the moment than to evaluate each other's radically debilitating pathologies.  
**TG**: yeah im gonna get moving  
**TG**: oh have you heard from john  
**TG**: hes not answering me  
**TT**: He won't answer me either.  
**TT**: But I am watching him.  
**TT**: I suspect he is preoccupied with the fact that he just had a bucket of water dumped on his head by the ghost of his dead grandmother, who also happens to be dressed like a clown.  
**TG**: hahahahaha  
**TG**: alright im out  
**TG**: later

* * *

_'INTERROGATE THIS MAD WOMAN.'_

John turned around and finally met face to face with the Kernelsprite, or perhaps we should call her 'Nannasprite.'

"Um…Nanna?" John asked hesitantly.

"Yes, dear!" Nannasprite answered cheerfully.

"Wow, you scared the living daylights out of me!"

"Hoo hoo hoo!" She chuckled.

"Well, I guess it was a really great prank. Good one Nanna." John replied. "Anyway, are you _really _my dead Nanna?" He asked her.

"Of course, John! I have come back to help you on your journey through The Medium and beyond! I am delighted to see what a fine young man you have turned out to be. Just like your father." She smiled.

"Okay, I guess I will take your word for it. I don't remember you at all! My dad said I was really young when you died." He said. "Hey, speaking of which, do you know where he is? I looked everywhere for him!"

"Your father was kidnapped!" Nannasprite exclaimed.

"Oh no!"

"When you crossed over to The Medium, he was apprehended by the very forces of darkness which your presence here has awakened."

"What? Okay, so what is the medium you are talking about?" John inquired.

"It is where we are now!" She told him. "A realm that is a ring of pure void, dividing light and darkness. It turns in the thick of The Incipisphere, a place untouched by the flow of time in your universe."

John was perplexed. "You mean because we are inside a computer, or in the game software or something?"

"A computer? Why, what is that, dear? Some new-fangled contraption, like the horseless auto-boxcar?" Asked Nannasprite.

"Well, uh, it's like this machine that, uh…" John was at a loss.

"Hoo hoo hoo!" She laughed. "Of course I know what a computer is, John! I was just pulling your leg! Hoo hoo hoo!"

"Oh, okay."

She continued with what she had been saying. "No, John. You are not inside a computer or software or anything like that! Try not to be so linear, dear. The software that brought you here was merely a mechanism that served as a gateway! Its routines in a way served to invoke this realm's instance, yet it stands independently of any physical machine, and somewhat paradoxically, always has!"

"I'm not sure I get it, but alright." He said. "So what do I actually need to be doing here?"

"I think it would be best if we started with the big picture!" Nannasprite began her explanation. "Above The Medium, beyond the Seven Gates, residing at the core of The Incipisphere is a place known as Skaia. Legend holds that Skaia exists as a dormant crucible of unlimited creative potential. What does this mean, you ask? I'm afraid my lips are sealed about that, dear! Hoo hoo!"

She continued. "But needless to say, where a realm of such profound importance is concerned, forces of light will forever be charged with its defense, while forces of darkness will just as persistently covet its destruction! And as it so happens, at the center of this realm whose fate is in question, these very forces duel on a stage, stuck in eternal stalemate. Yes, they have dueled in this manner forever…that is until you showed up!"

"Me?" John asked, bewildered.

"Yes, you, John!" She went on. "Before your mishap with my ashes, you may recall the Sprite's previous incarnation, which resulted from its Kernel's 'hatching.' You see, this hatching occurs automatically in response to your arrival! The result is a pair of Kernels, one dark, one light, each carrying the information they were prototyped with before the hatch! One goes down, to a kingdom entrenched in darkness. The other, up, to a kingdom basking in light! Each comes to rest in an Orb atop a Spire, of which there are three others in kind. The Four Spires are situated above a throne, and these two thrones preside over the two respective Sovereign Powers! And once the Kernels are situated, that is when the game is afoot. The true war begins, light versus dark, good versus evil. This is a war that the forces of light are always destined to lose, without exception!"

_'A QUEST OF FUTILITY THEN.'_

"Wow, really? Then what's the point?" Inquired John.

"That remains for you to find out, dear! For you see, the journey you are about to take is The Ultimate Riddle!" Nannasprite stated.

"Whoah!" He exclaimed.

"For now, your objective is to proceed towards Skaia, and pass through The First Gate situated directly above your house, not even terribly far! The Gates will become progressively more difficult to reach, so you had better be prepared to sharpen your adventuring skill!"

"How am I supposed to get up there?"

"You build!" She proclaimed.

"Okay, I think I get it now!" Said John with a grin. "So I guess the battle against good and evil is sort of irrelevant? Well, I don't know, that all sounds kind of weird, but in any case, we build the house to get to these gates, and then I can save my dad!"

"Yes, John!"

He jumped around excitedly. "And then after that, we solve this ultimate riddle thing and save earth from destruction!"

"Oh no, I'm afraid not!" Nannasprite shook her head. "Your planet is done for, dear! There is nothing you can do about that!"

"Oh…" He ceased jumping and frowned.

"Your purpose is so much more important than saving that silly old planet, though!"

"And that is?"

"HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO!" She laughed heartily. "John, you are such a good boy! I know you will succeed."

"Thanks, Nanna."

Nannasprite grinned thoughtfully. "You are a good boy, and good boys deserve treats!"

"Hooray!"

"I am going to go bake you some cookies." And with that, Nannasprite floated away through the wall, leaving a cyan colored glob of goo where she passed through.

Oh God dammit, that was just what he needed. More baked goods. John clutched his head in frustration thinking of his nemesis, Betty Crocker.

_'JOHN YOU DO NOT SAY NO TO COOKIES. I COMMAND YOU TO GET THEM.'_

John totally abjured the hell out of that idea.

But he was so busy abjuring, he didn't even notice that Rose had been trying to pester him this whole time.

Rose gave him a swift drubbing in the noggin with the red box that had been sitting on his bed with the game cursor, but he was undeterred! This was some fit he was throwing.

* * *

Perhaps she would take this moment to contemplate the Nannasprite's strange tale. It also behooved her to record her thoughts on these developments in her GameFaqs walkthrough/journal; but it could be hard finding time to update it. In fact, Rose was not even sure where she found the time to write what was already there!

She glanced over at Jasper's coffin, and noticed him peeking out where the lid had fallen off.

"Oh, is that so Jaspers? And just who do you think you're looking at with that smug grin?" She sneered at the feline corpse.

The last thing Rose needed was sass from a dead cat. It was pretty much all his fault she was in this mess in the first place, so he could just button it.

* * *

_'JOHN. COOKIES. NOW.'_

But he refused outright!

_'THIS IMPUDENCE IS INSUFFERABLE. GO GET THE COOKIES!'_

John grabbed a nearby pillow from his bed and buried his face in it. "Argh!"

_'JOHN YOU ARE STUPID. STUPID STUPID DUMB DUMB.'_

He dropped the pillow and raised his middle finger to the mysterious voice in his head.

_'FOR THE LAST TIME I COMMAnd you to get the cookies boy.'_

"Ugh! It's just not going to happen buddy!" he shouted angrily.

* * *

Years in the future…but not really enough to write home about, an agitated finger slipped mid-keystroke.

Frustrated with the boy on his screen, the Wandering Vagabond took a small break from his overseeing. When suddenly he noticed some cans sitting nearby. How fascinating! One was labelled "BEANS" and another, "MUSTARD." He wondered what this could mean.

But he soon forgot about them as he found a book entitled "Human Etiquette." Very curious indeed.


	21. Chapter 19

.

* * *

[B100] The Long and Short, The Medium too.

* * *

I may have been a bit hasty in advising you not to bother with the prototyping process. If I spared any detail, it was only to optimize your chances of survival. And if you find yourself begrudging the absence of certain instructions, which if followed would have resulted in your demise, then I guess that makes two of us.

Otherwise you're welcome.

But the fact appears to be that prototyping the Kernelsprite before making your getaway may offer the only opportunity to exercise control over your new environment, a place known as The Medium. Also, if prototyped with one (or two) sufficiently – albeit loosely – humanoid and/or sentient element/s (living or otherwise), it offers the chance to have all this explained to you by an apparitional guide through whatever sort of cryptic, sketchy doublespeak your choice of prototyping element/s engender/s. In lieu of this, you may be forced to settle for my clear, thorough explanations and assiduous dissection of raw data.

Again, don't mention it.

If you have made it to The Medium with an unmolested Vanillasprite, well, I've already covered the bad news about this "missed opportunity", and I will go into this further soon. Though to what extent this actually is bad news, I'm not sure. I know only the result of my co-player's current configuration, wherein the sprite was prototyped once before the departure, and once after. Which brings us to the good news, which is that you can still prototype after your departure, and salvage the massively rewarding experience of haggling with an exposition-slinging guide, so long as you avoid prototyping with terribly inert items, such as a brass doorknocker and your father's pornography collection.

Actually, that might be interesting. If you are struck by the spirit of such experimentation, please don't hesitate to contact me about it.

So, yes, you can enhance your sprite in this way, but doing so after your departure will no longer induce this "effect" on The Medium I alluded to. That can only be accomplish with one or more pre-departure prototypings. In fact, we can extrapolate there are only so many ways to prototype a sprite.

Tiers of prototyping in relation to departure:  
- Both before  
- One before, one after  
- Both after  
- Only one, either before or after  
- None

Those occurring before will affect The Medium through the kernel's "hatching" process, and your guide i.e. the sprite. Those occurring after will only affect the sprite.

The effects this process has on The Medium, or more globally, The Incipisphere, are still vague to me. They have to do with flavoring the forces you will struggle against, and generally, all forces at odds with each other in this realm. It has given me some insight into the nature of this game, which I again derive through extrapolation. We appear to be engaging an instance of dimension with a highly flexible set parameters, and a series of objectives surrounding an equally flexible mythological framework. This framework seems to begin as a sort of blank template, and evolves with the players' actions, and likely further evolves with the addition of more host/client connections, and thus more prototyped kernels.

I regret to say I can't be much more specific than that, without loosely extrapolating further. There are plenty of questions that have occurred to me, however. Questions concerning the Kernelsprite, which I've raised implicitly already, such as what is the effect of an un-prototyped kernel on The Medium? Or a doubly-prototyped kernel, for that matter? And even more salient are questions about this dimension itself. Do all players world-wide make it to this dimension if they successfully complete their departure? Or is a unique "blank" instance of the dimension created for each player? I have no evidence, but instinct tells me it is closer to the latter situation. There is no indication of any other players present in this realm. Alterations in the realm are singularly centered on the actions of my co-player and myself. If I had to stake anything on it, I would guess every separate client/server pair activates its own fresh copy of an Incipisphere, or a unique "session", if you will.

But the quantity of players is a further complication which invites more questions. It seems the game was designed to suit two players most naturally, the server and the client. But through a mishap, my co-player and I have slipped out of the obvious tandem arrangement, and the only logical course of action to continue playing is to string a daisy-chain of server/client connections together, until presumably the chain is complete. Theoretically, we could complete this chain with only one other player, functioning as the server to my client, and the client to my current co-player's server (assuming he can recover it).

The strange thing is though, in our instance of this dimension, there are four recepticles for divided kernels, not three. Does this mean we are "destined" to have a four player chain? How could the game "know" such a thing?

Perhaps it does, and if this proves to be the case, I trust I will be sufficiently numbed to the realization. [_I can consider nothing about this game surprising at this point, and in fact from the first moments of play, it managed to deviate so far from my expectations that I completely forgot what my original purpose with it was. I had some chances to test information I obtained on good authority during the prototyping phases, but it completely slipped my mind. Instead, the game's catacombs securing the dark paths to necromancy were blundered into rather on accident._

_But perhaps you don't need to know any of this.]_

[rethink organization? lead may be waist deep logorrheic sludge. trim down. bleh]

* * *

Rose closed her eyes in concentration. She wasn't finished with this walkthrough yet, and needed to be cut some slack.

Maybe we should go check on someone somewhere else for a while? Or at the very least, somewhen else.

* * *

Months in the past, but not many…it was a crisp winter day in the state of New York, and snow was piling up at the LaLonde house.

Rose sat at her desk on her laptop, with an empty blue box and brand new knitting kit sitting to her right.

On Pesterchum, she spoke with one of her friends.

**GG**: hi happy birthday rose! x3  
**TT**: Hello, and thanks.  
**GG**: did you get johns present yet?  
**TT**: I just opened it this very moment. What a stunning coincidence you would ask about it now. I am stunned.  
**GG**: yeah i know!  
**GG**: what will you make with it?  
**TT**: And who said it was something from which something else could be made?  
**GG**: well john did tell me what it was duh...  
**TT**: I suppose I'll take a stab at learning the craft.  
**TT**: It's the least I can do in response to the subtle dig concealed in his gesture.  
**TT**: He often tells me I "need a new hobby" when I make perfectly reasonable analytical remarks.  
**GG**: oh but rose i dont think he meant anything like that by it!  
**GG**: you see not everybody always means the opposite of what they say the way you and dave always do  
**TT**: Maybe.  
**TT**: His birthday is in a few months, isn't it?  
**GG**: yep!  
**GG**: i finally finished a present for him  
**GG**: ive been working on it for years!  
**TT**: Years?  
**TT**: It's so hard to tell when you're joking.  
**TT**: Or if you're even capable of it.  
**GG**: heheheh... :)  
**GG**: i just mailed it too so it is sure to get there on time  
**GG**: mail takes a while to get anywhere from here!  
**TT**: I'll probably craft something with strong sentimental value.  
**TT**: That should burn him.  
**GG**: i dont think you really mean that!  
**TT**: I guess not.  
**TT**: So, shall I expect a green package dropped to my house via airmail from whatever screwball cranny of the globe you're tucked into?  
**GG**: err...  
**GG**: no :(  
**GG**: sorry but you are sort of hard shop for ._.  
**GG**: besides i have something for you today that i think you will like better than some thing in a box!  
**TT**: Oh?  
**GG**: it is a tip!  
**TT**: This is already intriguing enough to compensate for the grave scarcity of lavish gifts parachuting from the sky. Please go on.  
**GG**: did you have a pet a long time ago that died?  
**TT**: Yes.  
**GG**: ok well how did you feel about your cat, did you love him a lot?  
**TT**: "ok well", I didn't mention it was a cat, or that it was a male. Let's pretend I'm surprised and you're embarrassed and move on.  
**TT**: To answer your question, I would describe my feelings toward the animal as lukewarm.  
**GG**: ummmmm ok...  
**GG**: thats fine!  
**GG**: it doesnt really matter i think, just...  
**GG**: what if someone told you you could play a game that would bring him back to life?  
**TT**: If someone told me that, I would regard the remark with a great deal of skepticism.  
**TT**: If that someone was you, on the other hand, then I would have to ask preemptively:  
**TT**: Is that someone you?  
**GG**: yes that someone is me!  
**GG**: i just thought you might find it interesting  
**TT**: So what is this game?  
**GG**: oh i dont know  
**GG**: im just saying is all  
**GG**: i think youll hear about it later and maybe you can talk to john and dave about it  
**GG**: they are way more into all that stuff than i am!  
**TT**: I'll see what the word on the street is about it. In due time.  
**TT**: For now I should probably order a copy of Knitting for Assholes. It would be a shame if I ran late with John's present.


	22. Chapter 20

Dave captchalogued his KATANA (2+1+2+1+2+1 = 9%10 = 9) and prepared to venture out into the apartment to retrieve his bro's copy of the game.

But first, maybe…just maybe he would retrieve the dead bird.

He looked down and out the window of his top floor apartment. The bird and the game copies lay down on top of a part of the building that was jutting out seven stories below.

Dude that bird was long gone. It probably wouldn't last long in this heat anyway.

The sky above the city was a mixture of burnt orange and red, as small meteors rained down to the ground below.

Dave didn't even know what was up with this sick heat. The sun threatened to set but wouldn't step off. It was staring him down, like the big red eye of a hot needle skipping on a groove it was tracing 'round the earth. While lingering in midair its heat seemed to suspend time itself, stretching it like a warped vinyl. It was meant to rain this season but there ain't been a drop in sight. Even a little drizzle would have helped. Might have helped to fizzle this sizzle a little bizzle, set the record straight on this global turn-tizzle.

"So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little  
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles  
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle  
G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo

When the pimp's in the crib ma  
Drop it like it's hot  
Drop it like it's hot  
Drop it like it's hot…"

- English Romantic poet, John Keats

Exiting his room, Dave made his way toward the living room.

Blocking the door, however, was a puppet hanging from the ceiling.

"Sorry little dude, coming through. Gotta put you down for a bit" He told it as he took down the puppet, placing it on the floor in a sitting position. He figured he had left him hanging long enough.

He then barged in through the door and stood in the living room. Bro spent most of his days in here. At night he crashed on the futon over there. Dave didn't see him anywhere now though.

Behind the futon was the puppet chest which Bro stored Lil' Cal in when he took him out on gigs. But when he was home he usually left Cal on display somewhere. And with good reason cause Cal was totally sweet.

So sweet.

Man.

It was then that Dave noticed a familiar face. A friendly face.

It was his brother's Mr. T puppet, which of course was kept in the apartment with a sense of profound humorous irony. But as usual with Bro's exploits, this was no ordinary irony, or anything close to a pedestrian tier 1 ironic gesture, which was a meager single step removed from sincerity. This was like ten levels of irony removed from the original joke. It might have been funny like eight years ago to joke about Mr. T and how he was sort of lame, but that was the very thing that made him awesome and badass, and that his awesomeness was also sort of the joke. But in this case, the joke was the joke, and that degree of irony itself was _also_ the joke, and so on.

Only highly adept satirical ninjas like Dave and his bro could appreciate stuff like this. It was cool taking stuff that other people thought was funny but they knew really wasn't, and making it funny again by adding subtle strata of irony which were literally undetectable to the untrained eye.

Also, for good measure, Mr. T was wearing a leather thong and handcuffed to a pantsless Chuck Norris puppet.

God, Dave hoped he could be as good as his bro at this someday. He'd never tell him that though.

Dave thought he should probably find Lil' Cal and give him fistbumps, but Cal was nowhere in sight. All he could see were a bunch of his bro's weird nude puppets strewn around haphazardly.

He…he guessed these things were kinda cool. Sort of…

It looked like Bro had been playing on the Xbox, as indicated by what was currently displayed on the TV. It wasn't like him to leave in the middle of some totally intense gaming. It was not like him to misplace Cal either…man Dave hoped the little guy was alright.

He turned around and had to repress his alarm at seeing that Cal was in fact sitting atop the large speaker next to the TV.

"Oh there you are dude. Didn't see you there." Dave said. "We be chill today, Cal? Yeah you better fuckin' believe we be chill."

Cal was the man.

Dave turned his attention back to what was playing on the screen and tried to resist the urge to play Bro's Xbox, but failed.

He started thrashing up stunts something uncannybrutal on his quest for "MAD SNACKS YO" and got this way rude hunger under control as he guided the skateboarder to collect various chips and doritos littered about the skate park. Shit was basically flying off the hook. It was like shit wanted nothing to do with that hook. The hook was dead to that shit.

But he got stuck in some poorly modelled 3D fixture or something. Like a railing or a piece of the wall? He would have to reset.

Fuck this shit.

Dave realized he had almost forgotten to give Lil' Cal a fistbump and promptly did so. Gotta give the C-man some props.

Elsewhere throughout the room, Bro had so much sweet gear it was hard to keep up with it all sometimes. Such as his computer setup. He usually had a lot of stuff cooking on there at any given moment.

Since he wasn't around, Dave thought he might as well sneak a peep.

Bro's computer was password protected though of course to protect all the incredible top secret shit he had on the burners.

Of course, Dave knew what the password was, and Bro knew he knew it, and they were both cool with that because the password was the most awesome thing it could be.

He entered the six-key password. On the desktop was a hodgepodge of unnamed folders to store all the stuff he was working on. No one could decipher his organization system but him.

Bro also tended to use the application Complete Bullshit to keep up with the ludicrous amount of websites and news feeds he monitored to stay hip to the scene.

Dave opened it up and was met with a vast array of fluorescent vertical columns, each representing a different site.

This was complete bullshit.

Bro kept up with Dave's projects in his aggregator, just like Dave kept up with his. He had tuned into Dave's various blogs, and of course "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff."

Dave navigated to the latest comic in one of the many Bullshit Feedbands.

In this adventure, Hella Jeff had come into the possession of a ticket to the BIG GAME in sports, and Sweet Bro was _so jealous_. At the game, the big man drove the rock "SO HARD threw the paint DOWN TOWN" until he "ahlly'yooped" for the SLAM DUNK.

The level of excitement in this comic was _off th charps_.

Dave moved his mouse over the orange stripe on the app containing Plush Rump, another one of his bro's many ironic websites. The difference here though was he raked in thousands of dollars a month through this enterprise.

Smuppets were a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise, and it was awfully hard to resist taking a firm squeeze from the plump udder of that cash cow.

On the site, Bro advertised a "free tour" through the puppet cams and at the top had a section to navigate the various pages. Such as Gallery, Live Video, Marionette, Bunraku, Plush, Foam, Felt and more.

But Dave guess he'd messed around on Bro's computer long enough, and he had better get a move on before it was too late for Rose, or worse yet, his bro caught him.

But my God…the rumps. They were transfixing.

He knew this was ironic and all, and his bro reached echelons of irony Dave could only dream of daring to fathom, but on rare occasions, when his guard was down, it all just seemed a tad unsettling to him.

Dave glanced to the other large speaker by him and noticed that Lil' Cal was now sitting atop this one.

"Oh. Uh…Hey…Hey there, Cal." Dave nervously reached out to give the puppet another fist bump.

He looked around the room at all his bro's memorabilia and began to feel a bit uneasy. He was sort of starting to flip the fuck out.

Without losing his cool of course.

To ease his nerves a little, he decided to get Egbert on the line again to give him the lowdown on his progress. He felt it was important to keep the wires hot.

But John wasn't answering. Dave wondered what that guy was up to.

**TG**: hey what is up  
**TG**: what happened with the monster that is totally definitely in your room did you kill it  
**TG**: where are you man  
**TG**: anyway  
**TG**: things are cool here  
**TG**: totally cool  
**TG**: puppets are still awesome  
**TG**: no problems with them or anything  
**TG**: like  
**TG**: just  
**TG**: really really awesome

Giving up on John for the time being, Dave saw that Rose was finally logged in again.

_'Didn't John say her house was burning down?' _He wondered if she was on fire yet or what.

**TG**: oh there you are  
**TG**: john said your house was burning down are you on fire yet or what  
**TT**: No. For now I have retired to the safety of a smaller building which is much closer to the forest fire threatening my residence.  
**TG**: oh well thats a relief  
**TG**: john told me to get the game to help get you out of there so im working on that now  
**TT**: Working on it?  
**TG**: yeah my bros copy long story  
**TG**: hey  
**TG**: dont tell john this but i think he might have been right about the puppets  
**TG**: theyre sort of starting to freak me out a little  
**TT**: You're referring to your brother's collection?  
**TG**: i mean dont get me wrong i think its cool and all  
**TG**: the semi-ironic puppet thing or whatever  
**TG**: or semi-semi ironic  
**TG**: man i dont even know  
**TG**: im just starting to think some of this shit is going a little far and its kind of fucked up  
**TT**: I've seen his websites.  
**TT**: I like them.  
**TG**: haha yeah well YOU WOULD  
**TG**: oh man i wish lil cal wouldnt look at me like that  
**TG**: with those dead eyes jesus  
**TG**: sometimes i dream that hes real and hes talking to me and i wake up in a cold sweat and basically flip the fuck out  
**TT**: Interesting...  
**TG**: oh god why did i just tell you my dream  
**TG**: youre going to have a field day with that  
**TT**: I am currently scrawling notes furiously into one of the many psychoanalysis journals I maintain for you. Published papers forthcoming.  
**TT**: Because, you know, it's not like either of us have anything better to do at the moment than to evaluate each other's radically debilitating pathologies.  
**TG**: yeah im gonna get moving  
**TG**: oh have you heard from john  
**TG**: hes not answering me  
**TT**: He won't answer me either.  
**TT**: But I am watching him.  
**TT**: I suspect he is preoccupied with the fact that he just had a bucket of water dumped on his head by the ghost of his dead grandmother, who also happens to be dressed like a clown.  
**TG**: hahahahaha  
**TG**: alright im out  
**TG**: later

* * *

Seconds in the future, but not many…Rose was still attempting to cause an end to John's hissy fit by thumping him repeatedly in the head with the red box, but it did not seem to be working.

**TT**: John, what are you doing?  
**TT**: Snap out of it.  
**TT**: We ought to discuss what your grandmother told you, don't you think?  
**TT**: Fine. Enjoy your stupor.  
**TT**: I'll go about my business elsewhere.

Downstairs, in Dad's study, Rose moved the piano out of the way to deploy the Punch Designix, at the cost of 4 units of Shale.

**TT**: John, whenever you read this, you should know I put the shale you collected to use and finally deployed the Punch Designix.  
**TT**: It is in your study.  
**TT**: I can only drop it though. You'll have to be the one to mess around with it and see what it does.  
**TT**: When you're finished with your weird histrionics, maybe you could give it a try?  
**TT**: I'm updating my walkthrough, and it would help to know what it does.  
**TT**: Also, I should probably warn you that your house and yard are completely infested with monsters now. Try to be careful.

John had stopped what he was doing and looked out the window at all the imps in his yard with disdain.

**EB**: so i can see.  
**EB**: stupid lousy imps.  
**EB**: they're mucking up all my cool stuff!  
**TT**: Oh, there you are.  
**EB**: oh, yeah.  
**EB**: sorry!  
**EB**: i'm not sure what came over me there, i was acting really crazy for some reason.  
**EB**: but my head feels like it's clearing up, i think i'm alright now.

He then picked up the broken claw hammer and rebuilt it, adding it to his strife specibus. He was getting better at this sort of thing.

Thank God John's sanity had returned so he could entertain extremely rational, coherent thoughts like confronting the pogo ride to prepare himself for Nanna.

He went into the bathroom and examined the pogo ride from the window, and angrily shook his fist at the scene before him. He did not like what he saw.

Outside, the imps had taken over the back yard, and one was riding on the pogo!

Those sons of bitches. _No one _risked painful injury on John's green slime ghost pogo ride.

No one but him.

Rose used the cursor to pick up the piano and drop it on the imp. This resulted in the piano breaking, but it did manage to kill the imp, causing it to explode into grist.

John's mouth hung open as he watched from the window.

**EB**: rose my piano!  
**EB**: :C  
**TT**: Sorry.  
**TT**: No nuance to these controls at all.  
**TT**: I was hoping to bludgeon the imp without letting go of it. Guess I can't really do that.  
**TT**: A broken piano isn't the end of the world though.  
**EB**: i guess you're right.  
**TT**: You'll need to pick up the spoils in person. I can't interact with the grist.  
**EB**: so...  
**EB**: that means i have to go out the back door?  
**TT**: Yes. Is there a problem?  
**EB**: well it may sound dumb, but i was hoping to avoid nanna and her spooky ghost cookies.  
**TT**: You're right, that does sound dumb.  
**EB**: can you see her in the kitchen?  
**TT**: Yeah.  
**EB**: what's she doing, is she baking?  
**TT**: You could say that.  
**EB**: are you SURE you can't get that grist up to me somehow?  
**TT**: Maybe.

In an effort to help John avoid going downstairs, Rose tried bouncing the pogo ride to fling the grist through the window, but it didn't look like that grist was going anywhere.

You just never knew with these gaming abstractions.

Instead, she opted to pick up the entire pogo ride and place it in the tub in John's bathroom.

He happily collected the two pieces of grist.

**TT**: There you go.  
**TT**: Now why don't you check out the Designix?  
**TT**: You can do that while I get to work.  
**EB**: on what?

Outside, Rose was building a staircase from the platform she had made earlier up to another small platform level with the top of the house's roof.

**TT**: Nanna said to build, so that's what I'm doing.  
**EB**: oh yeah. ok.  
**TT**: But this sure is going to take a lot of grist.  
**TT**: Looks like you're going to be busy, John.  
**EB**: blargh!  
**EB**: well, what are you building?  
**TT**: Stairs.  
**TT**: They are fairly expensive actually.  
**EB**: oh man...  
**EB**: i could have warned you about stairs, rose!  
**TT**: I'll try recouping some of the grist from the catwalk I built earlier.  
**EB**: IT KEEPS HAPENING  
**TT**: Ah, good. Looks like I can get a refund for earlier allocations.  
**EB**: i told you rose  
**EB**: i TOLD you about stairs!

Rose chuckled to herself at John's references to one of Dave's "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff" comics.

**TT**: Ok.  
**TT**: Consider me fully briefed on the matter of stairs.  
**TT**: Now if you don't mind, it's hard enough to concentrate on this without immersing ourselves in Strider's non sequitur.  
**EB**: did you know he thinks puppets are cool?  
**TT**: Does he?**  
EB**: he's so dumb!

Next, Rose used the Build Grist to construct a larger platform on top of the roof and connected it to the stairs she had just built previously.

Obviously she didn't have enough grist yet for something as ambitious as say, an observation tower, but she could get started with something of a foundation for upward construction at least.


	23. Chapter 21

**A/N:** There was a small section of Rose's walkthrough that I had to leave out completely as it was just links to "screencaps" she had taken of the SBRUB gameplay. But if you're interested in seeing them you can always check out the original comic at MSPA! End of author's note.

* * *

In the bathroom, John checked the cabinet under the sink for imps or other useful items. But there were no imps, just a lot of shaving cream.

Dads loved shaving. It was basically all they did (when they weren't baking that is.)

John captchalogued two cans of shaving cream just in case. He never knew when he'd need to bust out a hilarious shaving cream beard to ratchet up his prankster's gambit.

The telescope, expelled from the deck in the process, went flying out the window.

Seeing the pogo ride in the tub, John thought about hopping on and riding, but it was a little cramped in here for any sort of proper reckless pogoing. He would just grab it and hang on to it until the right moment presented itself.

As it left the deck, the towel floated back down to the rack.

The circle of stupidity was complete.

* * *

Meanwhile, on her laptop, Rose checked up on Nannaquin to see what was cookin'.

The entire kitchen was filled to the brim with freshly baked cookies.

A nearby imp ventured in and attempted to grab one off the table, but Nanna was quick to notice and zapped it with a laser from her right eye, destroying the pest.

* * *

Upstairs, John attempted to make his way to the study, but there were two pesky imps blocking his path to the stairs.

In fact, the entire living room below was crawling with imps. And it looked like they had taken a shining to the Cruxtruder. Cruxite and black goo. Everywhere.

But John wasn't having any of it.

He hopped on the Slimer pogo and prepared to one-up the imps. Well ok, it wasn't a Slimer pogo, but he mounted it anyway and brandished his deadly armaments, also known as a can of shaving cream and a hammer.

He bounced over the two imps and attacked them as he went, defeating them easily.

Then he bounced his way down the steps, continuing to attack the imps. This was incredibly dangerous!

Once he got to the living room, John was flipping the fuck out on these imps.

"Let's see how they like the old doublebarrel latherblaster- whoops! Oh shit!" He exclaimed.

The pogo ride had landed on an overturned totem of cruxite and rolled beneath him, causing both he and the pogo to take a rather nasty tumble.

John lay on the floor for a moment and stared at the ceiling, trying to get his bearings.

_'mister john, respectfully ask that you please stand up.' _The voice seemed to be back.

Jumping back up, John grabbed the pogo ride and pointed the shaving cream at it threateningly.

"Don't move or the pogo gets it!" He shouted at the imps.

They shrieked in horror.

_'now sir boy, flee from this boorish rabble post haste.'_

With the imps caught off guard, John took this as his chance to abscond. He ran up the wall by the fireplace a ways and did a little flip, allowing him to escape into the study.

In a last minute effort to help, Rose dragged the refrigerator to the living room and dropped it on an imp.

For slaying the imp, the refrigerator skyrocketed up the Echeladder to a new rung: Fivestar General Electric and earned 25 Boondollars. Things were really looking up for this feisty appliance.

* * *

_'well done, john. polite congratulations.'_

For some reason, John felt a sense of positive reinforcement. Wherever that feeling was coming from, it sure was a welcome change from his erratic moods earlier.

_'now my civil fellow, i have a well-mannered query to ask.'_

**TT**: I blocked the entrance to the study to give you some space to work with the Designix.  
**TT**: John, imps behind you.

But John had his back to the imps in the room and was completely oblivious to the current situation.

**TT**: Should I take care of it?  
**TT**: You trapped your PDA again, didn't you.  
**TT**: Why did you have to pick up all that stupid shaving cream?  
**TT**: So pointless.

Rose took Dad's safe that was sitting in the far corner of the room up to the roof and dropped it. The weight of the safe caused it to crash through the roof and eventually back down to the study where it crushed one of the imps.

Upon impact, the safe had burst open, dumping out its secret contents – some papers and a very old looking copy of Colonel Sassacre's daunting text.

_'john might i bother you for a can opener?'_

Still oblivious to the commotion behind him, John suddenly found himself pondering the whereabouts of a can opener.

He thought there was probably one in the kitchen, but his path was blocked by the refrigerator.

Rose sighed at her computer. John was completely unresponsive.

What the hell was that nincompoop doing? And was that an…arm in the wall? She must have been seeing things now.

* * *

Years in the future…but let's not get totally carried away here, a studious eye darted about a page like a honeybee gathering the nectar of wisdom.

The Wayward Vagabond was flipping through the book on human etiquette, tearing out pages as he went...

And eating them. Surely this was the way to absorb the book's knowledge.

* * *

Getting back to business, Rose was constructing a loft above John's room. She started doing so by first copying the chimney and using the copies to make four columns, on top of which she built another platform. Then she copied one of the railings from the balcony and rotated and dragged it out to make a ladder up to the new platform.

**TT**: Ladders seem to be a bit cheaper than stairs.

* * *

_'fellow john, it appears we have reached an impasse.'_

Yes, it seemed so. John was still standing in front of the doorway puzzling over the whereabouts of a can opener and was unaware of the imp standing directly behind him.

_'the opener dilemma remains unsettled, most unfortunately.'_

"It is unfortunate, I guess. What were we talking about again?" John spoke to the strange voice.

Meanwhile, behind him, Rose had drug a shelf from the kitchen over and smashed the imp with it.

_'but it has been a pleasure nonetheless.'_

"Thanks for the courtesy. It's not really necessary, but thanks anyway."

The PDA began to go off in John's sylladex as Dave pestered him.

_'oh, but thank you.'_

"Okay." Said John.

Rose began to hit John with a nearby hat as she too attempted to get in contact with him but to no avail. She screamed into her pillow, letting out her frustration.

The fact that Dave was continuing to pester her as well did not help the situation.

'_thank you so very very much, dear favorable small primate. i shall take my leave now john. until next time.'_

Finished conversing with whomever that even was, John turned around and saw all the grist scattered in the room along with the new objects.

'_Wait, where did all this sweet loot come from?' _He thought. _'And why is there suddenly a crumpled hat on my head?'_

Feeling especially economical with his behavior suddenly, John scooped up all the grist in the room, and turned his attention to the Punch Designix all in one fell swoop.

The device featured a countertop station design with a keyboard setup, not unlike an old-fashioned computer. There was also a blinking red light and a diagram etched into a panel.

The diagram showed what looked to be both the front and back side of a captchalogue card with an arrow pointing to a photo of the keyboard, followed by a picture of said captchalogue card then being inserted into some sort of slot.

* * *

In the mausoleum, Rose got back to Dave.

**TG**: ok wait hold on why am i getting this stupid game for you  
**TG**: youre the one who should be wrist deep in puppet ass  
**TT**: What is the specific problem?  
**TG**: the problem is i am up to my goddamn neck in fucking puppet dong  
**TT**: You know you like the mannequin dick. Accept it.  
**TG**: i am enrobed in chafing, wriggling god fucking damned puppet pelvis  
**TG**: an obscenely long, coarse kermit cock is being dragged across my anguished face  
**TT**: Let's put this into perspective. You put up with the puppet prostate because you love it. **  
TT**: Also, coarse is a good word.  
**TG**: you dont seem to harbor any sympathy for the fact that ive burrowed fuck deep into lively, fluffy muppet buttock  
**TG**: im whirling in the terrible cyclone at the epicenter of my own personal holocaust of twitching foam noses  
**TG**: its like a fucking apocalypse of perky proboscis here  
**TG**: like  
**TG**: the proboscalypse i guess  
**TT**: Are you going to start rapping about this?  
**TG**: what no  
**TG**: no listen  
**TT**: Prong of flesh bereft of home  
**TT**: Found solace 'twixt a cleft of foam.  
**TG**: no oh jesus  
**TT**: Of apocalypse your thoughts eclipse  
**TT**: A painted pair of parted lips  
**TT**: That dare through kiss to stir the air  
**TT**: That teases tufts of orange hair.  
**TT**: And though faces flush in lovers' fits,  
**TT**: Hands snug in plush as gloves befit.  
**TG**: ok dickinson if you can shut your perfumey trap for a half second  
**TG**: this is serious  
**TG**: i am just saying  
**TG**: if i see one more soft bulbous bottom being like  
**TG**: kind of jutting out and impudent or whatever  
**TG**: im gonna fly off the handle  
**TG**: im gonna do some sort of acrobatic fucking PIROUETTE off the handle and win like a medal or some shit  
**TT**: Then let's hope there will be a squishy derriere somewhere below the handle to break your fall.

* * *

John flipped over his top card containing the pogo ride. Any time he captchalogued something, a new code appeared on the back of the card. He'd always wondered what the code was for.

Damn, these things were hard to read. But then, he'd never really found any reason to decipher them. Until now, perhaps?

Next he examined the reverse side of the hammer card in his strife specibus. It looked like cards from his strife deck had codes too.

John decided he would enter the code from the pogo ride into the machine to see what would happen.

He entered, "DQMmJLeK" into the keyboard. At least that's what he thought the code was.

When he completed typing the code, the red light switched off and a green light began blinking.

He inserted the pogo ride card, and heard the machine make a sort of punching noise, and then the card popped back out of the slot.

It seemed that it had punched a series of holes into the card!

In the interest of due diligence, John entered the other code from the hammer card and repeated the process with that card too.

Both cards were now punched with different hole patterns.

Out of curiosity, he tried to retrieve the pogo from the card, but it looked like it was trapped now. He didn't see how he could access the item anymore, or store a new item there for that matter. These cards were pretty much useless now, and the items they contained were toast!

But maybe all was not lost. Recalling from his experience with the Pre-punched Card, he thought that he may be able to use the cards to replicate the items in question. Assuming he got the other codes right, that was…

Not quite through with his cowboy empiricism just yet, John mashed at the keyboard to generate a random code.

He had entered "dskjhsdk." The Designix stopped him after eight characters, which appeared to be the maximum length for a code. The green light went on signaling its readiness for a card.

He figured he might as well burn the shaving cream since the product was not exactly at a premium in his household. He also figured he might as well merge the two cans on to one card

John was a little sad that his dad wasn't around for this. He had a feeling Dad would get a real kick out of the idea of duplicating more shaving cream.

He proceeded to punch the card with a pattern that was in no way related to the code for the item it contained. This would make for an interesting experiment.

Mad science was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, he had burned another card in the process, leaving him with only three cards. His deck was really dwindling now. Maybe he should have thought this through a little better.

On the plus side, he had freed up his PDA, which was overflowing with the pent-up chatter of anxious pesterers.

* * *

Outside, an imp peered into the window of the study.

But it began to notice a looming shadow approaching, and turned around.

As it turned, it was met with a flying bathtub that sent it crashing through the wall. John jumped in alarm.

The tub had broken through the wall between the study and the kitchen as well when it landed; the imp leaving behind a nice bounty of grist.

John turned away from the scene and checked the PDA.

**TG**: PUPPETS  
**TG**: AWESOME  
**TG**: THATS REALLY ALL THERE IS TO SAY ON THE MATTER  
- turntechGodhead **[TG]** changed his mood to **RANCOROUS** –

**TT**: John, I'm about to throw a bath tub through your wall.  
**TT**: Watch out.

John stepped over the rubble left from the broken walls and looked out the gaping hole that now led to his yard.

**EB**: wow, that was so totally unnecessary!  
**TT**: I made a shortcut upstairs. I thought it would be a good idea to get up there and try the cards as soon as possible.  
**TT**: Also, you weren't being terribly responsive.  
**EB**: you mean these stairs?  
**EB**: man, look at these shitty stairs...  
**EB**: they're so narrow! i'm supposed to climb those?  
**TT**: They're perfectly navigable.  
**TT**: I'm saving on grist for now.  
**TT**: If you keep slaying foes, collecting grist, and expanding the cache limit, we may not need to be so economical with our resources in the future.

He looked up to see a big hole in the ceiling which the safe had made in its earlier descent and could see one of the gates high above him.

**EB**: so why didn't you just build a way up through that hole into my dad's room?  
**TT**: Have you ever been in there?  
**EB**: no.  
**TT**: Exactly.  
**EB**: huh?  
**TT**: I'd rather not get sidetracked.  
**TT**: I'm more interested in further exploring the mechanics of the game than watching you discover what sort outlandish harlequin decor your father keeps in his room.  
**EB**: oh come on. what's the big deal, i'll just climb up and go right through!  
**TT**: Will you?  
**EB**: yeah, why not?  
**TT**: Are you saying you've never wondered what's in there? Or why it's been kept a secret from you?  
**EB**: well, i mean yeah...  
**TT**: Then trust me. You won't be going "right on through."  
**EB**: wait, are you saying there's something, like...  
**EB**: troubling in there?  
**TT**: I don't know.  
**EB**: what do you mean? what do you see in there?  
**TT**: I can't see in there.  
**EB**: oh.  
**TT**: But I don't have a very good feeling about it.  
**EB**: pfff...  
**EB**: whatever!  
**EB**: i think i can handle a few more stupid clown paintings.

Meanwhile, Rose moved the punched cards up to John's room, along with a bunch of cruxite dowels.

And John made his way to swoop up the bountiful supply of grist generated by his co-player's recent exploits. From now on it would probably go without saying that he would nab any grist laying around without making a big fuss over it.

He also checked out the busted safe, which had made a noble sacrifice in battle. Some of his father's odds and ends had spilled out, including some old newspaper clippings, and two rather hefty tomes. It was a fair bet that these books comprised at least half the weight of the safe.

One of the books was another copy of _Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery_. But this one looked pretty old, perhaps an original printing. Could it have been the same one involved with his grandmother's unfortunate accident on that fateful day? Dad would never speak a word about it, but maybe Nanna wouldn't be so tight-lipped.

John gave the book a creepy perusal. It appeared to be similar to his reprinting, listing all the japes and chicanery he had come to know and love. He captchalogued it, thinking he may give it a closer look later.

He took a look at the other book, _The Fatherly Gent's Shaving Almanac_. He was sure Dad thought this was a scintillating read, but it looked pretty boring to John. Maybe he'd crack into it someday when he was old enough to shave.

Everything in this safe was obviously very important to his father. John wondered why he kept it locked away from him.

Some things about him John would never understand.

It also seemed he had been collecting the newspaper scraps for years. The articles, mostly about meteor incidents, went back decades.

As he put the papers down, John noticed a piece of paper taped to the wall that the safe used to sit in front of. It read:

SON.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, IT MEANS YOU ARE NOW STRONG ENOUGH TO LIFT THE SAFE. YOU ARE NOW A MAN.

AS SUCH, YOU ARE ENTITLED TO TAKE WHAT IS INSIDE. I KNOW YOU WILL TAKE THIS RESPONSIBILITY SERIOUSLY.

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU.

He flipped the card over and saw the numbers 02-49-13 written there. He guessed this was the combination to the safe. This was completely useless now.

On the floor John noticed a captchalogue card as well. He looked at the back of it, '0000000,' or he guessed these were all zeros? Or were they capital O's? Zeros would probably make more sense for an empty card he thought.

He captchalogued it, ejecting the totem from the deck and through the hole in the wall and over the cliff.

John then proceeded to enter the code on the back of the card containing the blank card into the Designix and punched it.

**TT**: Wait, John, before you punch that.  
**TT**: Oh.  
**TT**: I was about to say.  
**TT**: If you first took note of the code, then removed the card from the card, you could have punched the blank one.  
**TT**: You would have only burned one card instead of two.  
**EB**: oh yeah, you're right.  
**EB**: dammit!

He threw his hat out over the cliff in disgust.

Without thinking, he then captchalogued the punched card onto one of two cards in his deck. This caused the PDA to be jettisoned out and it almost fell over the cliff as well, but luckily Rose was able to quickly grab it with the cursor before that happened, and she laid it at John's feet.

"What?" He asked, wondering why the PDA was suddenly being put before him.

As he took the PDA, the ancient Sassacre text flew out, albeit not far due to its incredulous weight. It fell short of the cliffs edge, crushing a nearby imp that had been standing there.

The two-card sylladex: inventory of dumbasses.

John was now able to level up on the Echeladder from Champ-Fry to Pesky Urchin, bringing his Boondollar total to 740.

Colonel Sassacre leveled up for slaying the imp as well, and soared to new heights on his Echeladder, reaching the rung: One Man Julep Vacuum and pocketed 9550 Boondollars.

Chump change for the genteel, aristocratic southern colonel.

Even the bathtub surged heroically, surpassing the rung Archimede's Aquacradle, proceeding directly to vaunted rung: Taft-Jammer. The tub made off with a cool 490 Boondollars.

But the tub's basin capacity remained unaffected.

Not to be forgotten was the safe, which was slain in battle. A great flaming nautical pyre carried it off to Vaulthala.

* * *

John made his way to the outdoor stairs Rose had built and looked at them with uncertainty. They seemed pretty precarious to him. But he'd been assured the stairs were perfectly navigable.

He scrambled up the steps as quickly as he could, but this was his mistake, as he had tripped after making it only about halfway up the first staircase. He fell over and nearly tumbled off the stairs completely, but managed to grab on to one of the steps and hung on for dear life.

"Lousy goddamn stupid stairs!" He grumbled.

* * *

Not far behind him, at the cliff's edge where the Sassacre text lay, something was climbing up to the yard…


End file.
